rp on it to-day. Now, don't look so cross, Joe--I didn't mean to hurt
you. We'll wait until we can get a double buggy, since you're so set on
it. There'll be plenty of time when we're better off.'

After tea, when the youngsters were in bed, and she'd washed up, we sat
outside on the edge of the verandah floor, Mary sewing, and I smoking
and watching the track up the creek.

'Why don't you talk, Joe?' asked Mary. 'You scarcely ever speak to me
now: it's like drawing blood out of a stone to get a word from you. What
makes you so cross, Joe?'

'Well, I've got nothing to say.'

'But you should find something. Think of me--it's very miserable for me.
Have you anything on your mind? Is there any new trouble? Better tell
me, no matter what it is, and not go worrying and brooding and making
both our lives miserable. If you never tell one anything, how can you
expect me to understand?'

I said there was nothing the matter.

'But there must be, to make you so unbearable. Have you been drinking,
Joe--or gambling?'

I asked her what she'd accuse me of next.

'And another thing I want to speak to you about,' she went on. 'Now,
don't knit up your forehead like that, Joe, and get impatient----'

'Well, what is it?'

'I wish you wouldn't swear in the hearing of the children. Now, little
Jim to-day, he was trying to fix his little go-cart and it wouldn't run
right, and--and----'

'Well, what did he say?'

'He--he' (she seemed a little hysterical, trying not to laugh)--'he said
"damn it!"'

I had to laugh. Mary tried to keep serious, but it was no use.

'Never mind, old woman,' I said, putting an arm round her, for her
mouth was trembling, and she was crying more than laughing. 'It won't be
always like this. Just wait till we're a bit better off.'

Just then a black boy we had (I must tell you about him some other time)
came sidling along by the wall, as if he were afraid somebody was going
to hit him--poor little devil! I never did.

'What is it, Harry?' said Mary.

'Buggy comin', I bin thinkit.'

'Where?'

He pointed up the creek.

'Sure it's a buggy?'

'Yes, missus.'

'How many horses?'

'One--two.'

We knew that he could hear and see things long before we could. Mary
went and perched on the wood-heap, and shaded her eyes--though the sun
had gone--and peered through between the eternal grey trunks of the
stunted trees on the flat across the creek. Presently she jumped down
and came running in.

'Th