k and the children, and with nothing particular
about her in the way of brains. But now she sat by the fire looking like
the ghost of herself. I wouldn't have recognised her at first. I never
saw such a change in a woman, and it came like a shock to me.

Her sister let us in, and after a first glance at Mrs Baker I had eyes
for the sister and no one else. She was a Sydney girl, about twenty-four
or twenty-five, and fresh and fair--not like the sun-browned women we
were used to see. She was a pretty, bright-eyed girl, and seemed quick
to understand, and very sympathetic. She had been educated, Andy had
told me, and wrote stories for the Sydney 'Bulletin' and other Sydney
papers. She had her hair done and was dressed in the city style, and
that took us back a bit at first.

'It's very good of you to come,' said Mrs Baker in a weak, weary voice,
when we first went in. 'I heard you were in town.'

'We were just coming when we got your message,' said Andy. 'We'd have
come before, only we had to see to the horses.'

'It's very kind of you, I'm sure,' said Mrs Baker.

They wanted us to have tea, but we said we'd just had it. Then Miss
Standish (the sister) wanted us to have tea and cake; but we didn't feel
as if we could handle cups and saucers and pieces of cake successfully
just then.

There was something the matter with one of the children in a back-room,
and the sister went to see to it. Mrs Baker cried a little quietly.

'You mustn't mind me,' she said. 'I'll be all right presently, and then
I want you to tell me all about poor Bob. It's seeing you, that saw the
last of him, that set me off.'

Andy and I sat stiff and straight, on two chairs against the wall,
and held our hats tight, and stared at a picture of Wellington meeting
Blucher on the opposite wall. I thought it was lucky that that picture
was there.

The child was calling 'mumma', and Mrs Baker went in to it, and her
sister came out. 'Best tell her all about it and get it over,' she
whispered to Andy. 'She'll never be content until she hears all about
poor Bob from some one who was with him when he died. Let me take your
hats. Make yourselves comfortable.'

She took the hats and put them on the sewing-machine. I wished she'd let
us keep them, for now we had nothing to hold on to, and nothing to do
with our hands; and as for being comfortable, we were just about as
comfortable as two cats on wet bricks.

When Mrs Baker came into the room she brought