The Grape-Gatherers or Who was Mr. Smith?

Aunt Mary had gone up to London to do some shopping, and when Mollie came downstairs next morning she found Grannie installed in the drawing-room, instead of in the morning-room as usual, with another old lady who had come to spend the day.

"Mrs. Pell and I were at school together," she explained, as she introduced her grandchild, "and that was not yesterday," she added, as she settled Mollie in an easy-chair with the lame foot up on a cushioned frame. "My dear husband used this when he had gout," she continued, tucking a warm shawl round Mollie's bandages and large bedroom slipper. "It was made in the village under his own directions, and is most ingeniously constructed. Poor, dear Richard was such an active man; he could not endure to lie on a sofa, and I had the greatest difficulty in keeping him to his bed even when his attacks were severe."

Mrs. Pell shook her head as she looked admiringly at the foot-rest.
"James was the same, he hated a sofa and would always sit in a chair.
Not that he was so active, but he was stout, and stout people are more
comfortable sitting up than lying on their backs."

Mollie coughed. She had either to cough or to laugh, which, of course, would never have done.

"My dear, I trust you have not caught cold," Grannie said anxiously. "Perhaps we should close the window. Your Aunt Mary has a perfect craze for open windows, and I sometimes think there is a draught in this room."

"No, no, Grannie," Mollie protested; "I have not got the least bit of cold, and I love the open window; it is so warm to-day. It was only a tickle; I get them sometimes—tell me about when you and Mrs. Pell were at school, please."

The two old ladies smiled at each other over their spectacles.

"That was not yesterday," Grannie repeated. "You would think very poorly of our school. We had no games, no gym-dress, no examinations such as you have; but we learnt the use of the globes very thoroughly, and we spoke French, so that we were not at a loss when we went to Paris later on. Our dancing was much more graceful than the foolish gambols with their ridiculous titles which you young people call dancing nowadays. Fox-trot, indeed! And bunny-hug. And rag-time. I never heard such names in my life! We danced the Highland schottische, and the quadrille, and Sir Roger de Coverley. And do you remember your famous curtsy, Esther? And how Madame made you show off on parents' day?"

"Indeed I do!" Mrs. Pell answered briskly. "I believe I could do it now, this moment. I have been wonderfully free of rheumatism this year."

"Do, do," Mollie begged, overlooking the insult to her beloved fox-trot in her anxiety to see a real old-fashioned curtsy.

Mrs. Pell laid her knitting on one side, rose from her chair, and walked to the middle of the room. She shook her somewhat ample black silk skirt into place, tilted her chin to an angle that gave her a decidedly haughty expression, and stood facing Grannie and Mollie.

"You must imagine yourselves to be our beloved Queen Victoria and our beautiful and gracious Alexandra, Princess of Wales," she said, looking so elegant and distinguished that Mollie suddenly felt rather small and shy, while Grannie, on the other hand, drew herself up into what was presumably the attitude of Her late Majesty.

Mrs. Pell lifted her skirts with an easy turn of her pretty hands and wrists, pointed a charming foot, so small that it made Mollie gasp, and began to sink slowly down. Down, down, down she swept, her skirt billowing out around her, her shoulders square, her head erect—down till she all but touched the floor, and how she kept her balance was a perfect miracle; then slowly up, with an indescribably graceful curve of neck and elbows, till once more she stood erect, pleased and triumphant, a pretty pink flush on her cheeks.

Grannie clapped her hands. "There, Miss Mollie! That was how we were taught to curtsy! There's nothing resembling a fox about that!" she exclaimed, as Mrs. Pell took her seat again and resumed her knitting.

"It was perfectly lovely," Mollie agreed warmly, "but it does require the right kind of skirt, Grannie. Did anyone ever topple over at the critical moment?"

"Not that I can remember," Mrs. Pell answered; "but, of course, it required a great deal of practice, and we did many exercises before we got the length of our court curtsy. Do you remember Ellen Bathurst, Daisy?" (How funny it sounded to hear Grannie called Daisy.) "And the time all the brandy-balls fell out of her pocket? How angry Madame was!"

Of course Mollie had to hear about the adventure of the brandy-balls, and from that the talk drifted to memories of old friends long since dead and gone, whose names Mollie had never heard. It was a little depressing, and her thoughts wandered away to the Campbells. She wondered where she would find herself that afternoon, and then remembered with dismay that Aunt Mary was away and there would be no tunes.

But after lunch Grannie insisted upon the sofa as usual. "You shall have your lullaby," she said. "Mrs. Pell and I are going to play duets. We used to play a great deal together when we were young, and no doubt our music is just the thing for sending you to sleep; it has a base and a treble and some perfectly distinct tunes."

"Don't be sarcastic, Grannie," Mollie laughed, as Grannie bent to kiss her. "I am sure it is beautiful music, and I like tunes myself. Jean is the musical one of our family. She jiggles up and down the piano in no particular key and calls it 'The Scent of Lilac on a June Day'."

"Well, well," said Grannie. "Times change. We are going to play selections from Faust, with variations. Sleep quietly till tea-time, my dear."

Mollie smiled as she listened to the selections. "—two-three, one-two-three, one—" she could hear the treble counting. "I like it," she murmured to herself rather sleepily—the morning's conversation had not been exciting on her side. "I am glad I am not James, for this is an awfully comfortable sofa—hullo, Prue! You are in a hurry to-day! I was just thinking of a nap—"

Prudence did not answer; she was listening to the piano.

"Mamma sings that," she said. "It's Faust. I adore Faust. Don't you? The waltz simply makes my feet go wild."

"I don't know it," Mollie confessed. "There are so many things I don't know. Hurry up, Prue. I have had such an aged morning; now I want a young afternoon."

"—two-three, one-two-three, one—" said Prue, taking Mollie's hand in her own.

* * * * *

It was very hot. So hot that Mollie could not be bothered to move. She was half-sitting, half-lying on a bed of bracken, and around her she could see the supine forms of four other children—Prudence and Grizzel, Dick and Jerry—all lying in various attitudes of exhaustion and apparently all asleep. Mollie was too lazy to turn her head, but she could see that they were in a wood. The trees were the eternal gum trees, with their monotonous grey trunks and perpetual blue-green foliage. They were not growing in the neighbourly manner of trees in an English wood, nor did they throw the cool green shade of elms and beeches, but still in their own way they formed a wood. Mollie lay with her back propped up against one of the grey trunks, her arms behind her head, and her eyes blinking sleepily. She wondered where Hugh was.

"You are a lazy lot," said a voice behind her. "I have been helping
in the vineyards all morning, and I've discovered a new kind of grape.
Mr. von Greusen thinks it might turn out to be a good champagne grape.
The carts are coming down; don't you want to see them?"

As he spoke Hugh came round and stood at Mollie's side. He wore a coat of tussore silk, and his shirt was open at the neck; a wide pith helmet was on his head, draped with a striped pugaree with broad ends hanging down his back, and further decorated with vine leaves, which looked rather droopy in the heat. He held out a hand to Mollie and pulled her up, looking scornfully at the recumbent figures of Jerry and Dick.

"What a way to spend the time!" he exclaimed. "Their eyes tight shut and their legs spread out like dried fruit. They'll never discover a new grape and have the most famous champagne in the world called after them. Come on!"

Mollie had been listening for a little while to a distant rumble. It now resolved itself into the uneven racketty grind of heavy cart-wheels on a rough track. She went forward with Hugh, and, shading her eyes from the glare of the sun, looked up the road which wound between the trees of the wood they were in. As she watched, the carts came into view round a bend of the track, and soon they were passing before her. A team of six oxen drew each heavy load—such a load as Mollie had never seen in her life. Grapes! Grapes piled up like turnips! They had been thrown in by careless hands accustomed to working with rich harvests, and here and there they hung over the sides, or dropped to the ground, to be trodden under foot by indifferent beasts and weary men.

The noise of trampling feet and creaking wheels disturbed the sleepers, who, one by one, got up and came beside Mollie and Hugh. There was a smell of hot grapes in the air, mingled with the smell of sweating oxen, dry grass, and pungent eucalyptus, and the spilled juice of grapes mixing with the hot dust of the track added a peculiar aroma of its own to the general nosegay, as Dick described it. Mollie thought that she could never remember smelling anything so thirst-inducing in all her days. When the last cart had disappeared down the winding road, and the noisy rattle had died away to a distant rumble again, Hugh sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree and stretched his arms.

"Where are they going?" asked Dick, now wideawake and curious. "What happens next?"

"They're going to Mr. von Greusen's place to be made into wine," Hugh answered, "and it's a funny thing that however nice grapes are raw they are all equally nasty when turned into wine. Some go sour and black and you call it claret, and some go sharp and yellow and you call it Frontignac or any other silly yellow name. What I should like to invent would be a kind of drink that tasted of grapes, fresh sweet grapes. I'd add a dash of peach, and a slice or two of melon, and a bottle of soda-water. And just enough powdered sugar. And ice."

"Let's go and get the things now and make it this very minute," said Grizzel, tying on her sun-bonnet and making ready to start. "I'm so thirsty."

"It's too late to-day, and besides I'm tired. There was a man up there who wanted to know all sorts of things about the vineyards. Mr. von Greusen was too busy to go round with him, so he sent me. He was pleased with me for discovering that grape. The man's name is John Smith. I think he is French."

Mollie laughed.

"What are you laughing at?" asked Hugh, looking all ready to be offended.

"Oh—nothing—I'm not laughing," Mollie declared; "it's only a sort of tickle; I get it sometimes."

"John Smith isn't exactly a French name," said Jerry. "Why do you think he is French?"

"Because he called Mr. von Greusen a 'vigneron' and talked about 'hectares' instead of acres, and 'hectolitres' instead of gallons, and he told me how vines were trained in Champagne and Burgundy and Languedoc—all very Frenchy. Mr. von Greusen never talks like that. He was interested in my new grape, but he's afraid it won't go on being like it is now. He says it has about one chance in a hundred. I don't mind betting you sixpence it will be a champagne grape."

"I don't mind betting you sixpence he isn't French if his name is John
Smith," said Jerry. "You might as well call yourself a Scotsman named
Chung Li Chang."

"Oh—names! Names are nothing out here," Hugh said loftily. "We can call ourselves what we please. This is the Land of Liberty. Besides, Papa knows a Scotsman called Devereux, so there you are."

"Faugh!" said Jerry scornfully. "That's nothing! Everyone knows that
Scotland is full of French names."

"I suppose you are trying to say 'sfaw'," said Hugh coldly. "There is nothing to sfaw about. Lots of Chinese people come to Australia and call themselves John Smith if they choose."

"Faugh!" Jerry repeated.

"Sfaw!" said Hugh.

"Faugh—" Jerry began, but Dick interrupted.

"If you two asses are trying to say pshaw you are both wrong. I happened to see it in the dictionary a few days ago and it is pronounced shaw; it's a silly sort of word anyhow. No one uses it in real life. Shut your jaws and stop your shaws and let's go and get a drink."

"You can go," said Hugh, whose feelings were injured by the lack of interest in his new grape. "I'm going to stay here for the present."

"Leave him alone and he'll come home and bring his grape behind him," sang Grizzel, as they set off down the hill. Hugh pretended not to hear.

"I wish I was a Red Indian," he muttered to himself, as he watched the little party straggling down the road. "I'd invent some first-rate tortures for Grizzel."

The children trudged along the track between the trees. The air was full of dust stirred up by the carts, the sun seemed to grow hotter and hotter every moment, "putting on a sprint before the finish", Dick groaned, and the children grew thirstier and thirstier, till Mollie felt she could hardly bear it for one minute more. Her lips and tongue were dry and parched, and, although she kept her mouth shut, the dust blew up her nose and down her dry throat. She felt as if the sun were hitting her on the back between her shoulders, and her feet kept stumbling over the deep ruts in the road. "A Guide's motto is never say die till you are dead," she thought to herself. "There are times when I wish I were not a Guide, and this is one of them. 'Be Loyal.' Oh—bother Baden-Powell!" She held up three fingers to remind herself of the Guide Law, and tried her best to smile. "How do the others get on without it?" she wondered, watching Prue and Grizzel as they loitered along just before her, Grizzel dragging weary little feet in the dust. "I suppose they are used to it. Life in Australia isn't all beer and skittles. I wonder what skittles are? If they are something nice to drink I wish we had some here. Even beer would be better than nothing. I am a beautiful Patrol Leader! Walking behind and grousing for all I am worth." She hurried her steps a little and made up to the boys.

"Let's make a queen's chair and carry Grizzel," she suggested. "She looks about done. We can do it in turns, Dick and me, then Prue and Jerry."

"Righto!" said both boys at once.

"But you girls needn't do it," Dick added. "Jerry and I have carried heavier loads than that, haven't we, old son-of-a-gun?"

"Faugh!" said Jerry, with a wink.

Fortunately for the boys, and for Mollie, whose pride as a Patrol Leader was now up in arms, and perhaps most fortunately for Grizzel, whose weight was by no means fairy-like, they were overtaken at that moment by an empty cart, the driver of which pulled up and invited them all to jump in. It was a relief to sit down, though the floor of the cart was far from clean, and they were rattled and bumped like dried peas in a basket. Mollie thought the road would never end, and began to wonder at what stage of thirst delirium came on. But the longest lane has a turning, and at last they came in sight of a white house standing in the middle of an untidy sort of garden. The usual balcony ran round it, but this time it was approached by a wide flight of steps leading up from the drive in front. The cart stopped before a wooden gate, and without a word Prue led the way to the back veranda, where a row of canvas bags hung swinging from the roof. There were taps in the bags, but Prue ignored them. She climbed on to the veranda railing, dipped a tumbler into a bag, and handed it down to Mollie.

Oh, the exquisite joy of that drink! The water was deliciously cold; it trickled over Mollie's parched tongue, irrigated her dried-up throat, washed away the dust she had been inhaling, and in half a minute made her feel like a newly-made-over girl.

"It is worth while being thirsty," she said, as she watched the others revive under the same treatment. "I never knew before what a delicious thing water is. I'd like some more, please."

"I wish we were all giraffes," Grizzel said, with a sigh. "I'd like to have a throat a yard long and just sit here for ever letting cold water bubble down its hotness."

"What about Hugh?" asked Jerry, his conscience smiting him now that the irritating effect of heat and thirst had departed, and he reflected that his slighting remarks were probably the cause of Hugh's absence from this refreshing entertainment. "I expect he is the thirstiest of the lot, seeing he is the only one who did any work."

"He had his billy-can of cold tea with him this morning," Prue answered, "and if he is thirsty it is his own fault for being so huffy. Anyhow, he likes to practise enduring things; he says it is a useful habit. The worst of it is he thinks everyone else should endure too. I don't see the slightest use in making disagreeable things happen ten times just in case they should have to happen once."

Hugh seemed to have forgotten his grievance when he got home. He arrived along with Mr. von Greusen, who came to supper and talked to Papa about vintages and vines, the prospects of the wine industry, the possibilities of olive culture, and other subjects interesting to Australians but a trifle dull for the English listeners. Presently, however, the name of John Smith was introduced, and the boys pricked up their ears.

"He asks many questions," said Mr. von Greusen, "but I do not think that his heart is in the vineyard, as the heart of a man must be if he wishes to make his wine world-famous. In your work, that is where your heart must be, my children," he added, looking solemnly at the boys.

"And where do you think that the heart of Mr. John Smith is?" Papa asked, with a twinkle in his blue eyes.

"Ah!" said Mr. von Greusen, shaking his head, "that know I not. The heart of a young man who brings himself to Australia and whose feet tread the vineyard while his eyes look far away, so that he repeatedly trips over obstacles—where is it?" He shook his head again and hummed in a melodious baritone:

"Mdchen mit dem rothen Mndchen
Mit den uglein sss und klar."

"Aha!" laughed the professor, "I have seen more than one young man come to Australia to cure that disease. But I don't recommend the vineyard."

"I also not. Mr. John Smith should squat," said Mr. von Greusen.

Mollie laughed so suddenly that she choked, and brought a look of disapproval upon herself from her hostess.

"You may go, children. Mr. von Greusen wishes to hear you play,
Prudence. Wait in the drawing-room till we come."

"Why did you go and laugh?" Hugh asked Mollie, as they trooped off to the drawing-room and thence to the balcony to enjoy the cool breeze which had sprung up. "I wanted to hear more about Mr. John Smith. I don't understand German. Do you? Why did Papa laugh?"

"I don't know much German, but I think Mdchen means girl," Mollie answered. "I couldn't help laughing. Squatting sounds such a funny cure for being in love." She giggled again.

"Girl!" Hugh exclaimed."Girl! I didn't think he was that sort of an idiot! He talked quite all right to me. No wonder Papa laughed. It's much funnier than squatting, I can tell you. There's nothing to laugh at in being a squatter. They're as rich as What's-his-name. Some of them are millionaires. I wish Papa was a squatter—but he would be no use on a sheep-run; you've got to be in the saddle all day, and keep your eyes skinned for blackfellows half the night. John Smith looked the very chap for it. Girl!"

"You needn't go on saying girl in that voice," said Grizzel. "It isn't the girl who is tumbling about with loverishness; it's Mr. Smith."

"What happened to the diamond-mine?" Mollie interrupted, feeling that another squabble was in the air. "Did you make a fortune, and is this house it?"

"Oh no—this house belongs to the Bertram Fitzherberts; they are fruit-farmers. They have gone home for a trip, and they told Papa to come here for the holidays, if he liked. Mr. von Greusen looks after the farm for them. His vineyard begins a little farther up the hill. The diamond-mine hasn't begun to pay yet, but it soon will."

"Do you like—is Mr. von Greusen a nice man?" Mollie asked hesitatingly; it felt a little queer to be such friends with the late (or the future, Mollie was a trifle mixed) enemy.

"Nice! Of course he is. Jolly nice, and jolly clever too. Why do you ask?"

"Oh—I don't know—he is a foreigner, and sometimes foreigners are—they're different."

"I don't know what you mean by different. Everybody is different from everybody else. Anyhow, he isn't a foreigner here; he is an Australian."

"What happens if you go to war?" asked Dick.

"We don't go to war. We are too far away to fight against other countries, and we will never fight each other, like America, and France, and the Wars of the Roses. There's nothing to fight about and there never will be. Of course—if we wanted to we could. We'd be first-class fighters if we weren't so peaceful. In fact," Hugh continued, in a somewhat dreamy tone, "I have invented, or at least thought about, several rather good things for fighting with—but they will never be wanted in Australia. Papa says that if ever there was a sweet and blessed country on earth it is Australia; it is full of peace and goodwill towards all men."

The English children were silent. It was a good thing, they thought, that people could not see into the future. Time-travelling was certainly best done backwards. And yet—who would want to wipe out the record of the Anzacs? Life was a fairly puzzling job, when you saw too far ahead.

"Papa says," Grizzel repeated, "that Australian people ought to be the goodest people in the world, because there is a beautiful Cross always shining in the sky to remind us of the Beloved Son, like the rainbow, so that we should never forget. But I do. Nothing in the world seems to keep me from forgetting to be good just when I most want to remember." Grizzel heaved a sigh from the very bottom of her sinful little heart.

Everyone's eyes turned towards the Southern Cross, conspicuous even amongst the myriad stars shining and throbbing with tropical brilliance in the velvety blackness of the sky. Mollie remembered that it decorated the Australian flag, and she wondered if the sight of it had made the soldiers homesick sometimes. They were real Australians, she thought to herself, born and bred in this sunny land. She could remember a day when she had been walking with her mother in the Pimlico Road—a dark, foggy, raw day in late autumn. They had come upon a group of Australian soldiers standing round the door of a little green-grocer's shop, and chaffing the good-natured shop-woman about the quality of her fruit. Mother had stopped to speak to them. Mollie could not remember exactly what had passed, but the men had been friendly and communicative, and if they had groused about the English climate they had some cause, she thought, considering the climate they had come from; and they were cheerful about the war—she could remember that, for their voices had followed them through the fog singing "Australia will be there!" to what she had thought was a very lively and pleasant tune—and yet Mother had tears in her eyes. It was a good idea, she reflected, having that device on the flag, for it really was a bit of home—for them. Poor men! Suddenly a new thought came into her mind.

"Look!" she whispered, laying a hand on Jerry's arm and pointing to the
Cross, "look! how brightly it shines! Their name liveth for evermore!"

Prue had slipped indoors and was playing a grave prelude and fugue of Bach's. The three older people joined the children in the balcony, and sat quietly listening till she had finished.

"That was very good, my child," said Mr. von Greusen, patting her approvingly on the shoulder, "very good indeed. Next winter we shall study together some piano and violin duets. And now perhaps your verehrte Frau Mutter will make some of her beautiful music for us. Some Schubert songs, yes?"

So Mamma went in, and she and Mr. von Greusen both made beautiful music, separately and together, which the audience in the balcony enjoyed without troubling to understand, Prue being the only one among them who loved music with her head as well as with her heart.

A sound of footsteps on the path below attracted the children's attention. Someone was walking slowly backwards and forwards, obviously listening to the music. As he passed through the long beam of light sent out by the lamp into the darkness, he turned up his face for a moment.

"It is Mr. John Smith," Hugh said in a low voice. "Shall I ask him to come up, Papa? He looks lonely out there all by himself."

"By all means ask him to come up," Papa whispered cordially; "but go quietly, my son, or Mamma will be out to know who is there, and our concert will be over."

Hugh departed on his errand, returning in a few moments with a tall figure in his wake, which he led to one of the long cane chairs scattered about, and left to its own meditations.

The children looked curiously at Mr. John Smith, He appeared to be a dark-haired young man, with a considerable amount of nose and chin and a good many inches of leg. He sat very still, his eyes fixed on the starry sky before him. There was, in his general outline in the semi-darkness of the balcony, something vaguely familiar to Mollie—one of those tantalizing impressions that come and go and refuse to be laid hold of.

"But I can't have seen him before," she said to herself; "it is quite impossible." She looked away and tried to get to where she had been before Mr. Smith came up—to that fairyland which the musician summons up with a wave of his magic wand, especially perhaps for those who love music mostly with their hearts, but the teasing little impression disturbed her like an imp. Until the notes of Schubert's "Adieu" came floating out into the night and carried them all on its wings up to the very gates of Heaven.

The sound of the piano closing brought them back to earth. The musicians stepped out on to the balcony.

"Ende vom Lied," Mr. von Greusen said, as he left the lighted room behind him, "and the end of the evening too, for me. I must be getting home—hullo, Smith! Where did you come from? Am I to have the pleasure of introducing you to Professor and Mrs. Campbell, or has someone stolen a march upon me?"

"I brought him up," Hugh answered. "He heard Mamma singing and was fascinated like flies and moths and things."

They laughed as Mr. Smith made his apologies while he joined in the laughter. "You must come again," Mamma said, "and we will have a concert properly prepared for you. And you will give me all the news from home," she added, with the wistful note that was so often in her voice, "unless you will come in now, and try our Australian wine?"

But the young man could not stay, and, after a few more words of thanks and a grateful promise to come again at the earliest possible opportunity, he went off with Mr. von Greusen.

"Who is Mr. Smith?" Mollie asked, as they moved bedwards. "Doesn't anybody know who he is?"

"He is a young man newly out from home, and that is enough for Papa and Mamma," Hugh answered, with a yawn. "What does it matter who he is so long as he is a nice chap."

"But suppose he was a bushranger in disguise and—"

"Suppose he is Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Jews," Hugh interrupted, with another yawn. "I'm going to bed. We shall sleep tonight, with that cool wind. Thank goodness."

Next morning found them again on the winding road which led up to the vineyards. For three-quarters of the way it ran through the woods of yesterday; then they left the woods behind and emerged on to a bare and shadeless track on the hill-side, and ten minutes later they turned in through the gate of the vineyard Mr. von Greusen had given them permission to "browse" in, as he had expressed it. The English children had never seen a vineyard in their lives, and their expectations were inclined to be romantic and artistic. Large bunches of thin-skinned, bloomy purple grapes, hanging gracefully down from something like a pergola, was the picture they had formed in their minds. Mollie, it is true, had seen grapes growing in the cherry garden, but they had been so surrounded by cherry trees and other exciting objects that they had not left any great impression.

They found the reality somewhat disappointing. Here were acres of straight green lines hardly higher than gooseberry-bushes, and without a single tree to break the monotony or to cast a welcome shade. The bunches of grapes looked inviting enough, hanging among their decorative leaves and tendrils, but they had not been thinned and consequently were smaller than English hothouse grapes, while exposure to wind and dust had removed most of their bloom; but, in spite of their comparatively homely appearance, the children soon found that the fruit tasted sweet and luscious as only freshly gathered, sun-ripened fruit can do.

"This is Mr. von Greusen's experimental field," Hugh explained. "He mostly grows different lots for different wines, but here he has all sorts. We like these Ladies' Fingers; they go off in your mouth with such a nice squelch."

"What happens if you eat his favourite experiment?" asked Jerry, squelching his way diligently through a bunch of long, slender grapes of a translucent pale-green colour.

"He says, 'Donnerwetter! What see I?'" Hugh answered; "but he ties a red worsted round his first-class experiments and then we know. He has tied all my new grapes up except the bunch he took home."

Now that the children were in the vineyard, and heard Hugh talking learnedly of Black Portugals, Verdeilho, Shirez, and other strange-sounding names, they were more reverential towards his new grape, which might be called Hughenne, or even, he generously suggested, either Gordello or Campdonne.

"It has to have a winey sound, you see," he said, "or it wouldn't sell.
I think 'Gordello' sounds rather well myself."

It did not take very long to satisfy their appetite for grapes. The sun got hotter, their eyes ached with the glare, and they decided to return to the coolness of the woods and gardens lower down. The boys wanted to go exploring; the girls were to be left to collect peaches and melons for the new drink—which might bear the honoured name of Gordello until the famous champagne was put on the market—which would then be ready and cooling in the spring of the Fairy Dell by the time that the explorers were weary of exploring. Thus planned the boys.

"Boys propose, girls dispose," paraphrased Mollie, as the three pith helmets disappeared, after their owners had condescended to gather a share of the Gordello-destined grapes and carry them part of the way towards the Dell. "If Dick and Jerry want drinks they can jolly well come and make them. I am going to have a rest."

Prue looked a little shocked, but Grizzel heartily agreed with Mollie. "I shall pull six peaches and one water-melon exactly," she said. "I am tired and my legs ache, and I can't be bothered with Hugh and his old Gordello."

A short walk down the road between the gum trees brought them to the fruit gardens, where Mollie saw peaches that made up by their magnificence for any hothouse elegance lacking in the grapes. Large as apples, soft and downy as velvet, glowing with crimson and gold, they were a perfect revelation of what peaches could be when they tried, and Mollie could hardly bear to wait till they reached the Fairy Dell before devouring one. But Prudence was firm.

"No, Mollie; not after all those grapes while you are hot and tired. Come and get your water-melon, and we'll go straight to the Dell and rest and eat peaches there. If you ate them now you might die all of a sudden, and that would be so awkward for Grizzel and me."

Mollie thought it would be more awkward for her, but did not argue. She followed Prue obediently, finding her basket of grapes, plus six peaches and a large water-melon, quite enough to absorb all her energies. If only Gordello were an accomplished fact, she thought, it would be very delightful. If someone else had made it and she could find it "cooling in the spring", as the boys expected to do, it would be extraordinarily delicious, and the more she thought of it the more delicious it became in her fancy. Poor boys! She was sorry for the disappointment awaiting them. Australians seemed to be a strenuous lot of people; no wonder the Australian soldiers were so brown and chinny.

Her meditations on chinny Australians lasted till they reached the Fairy Dell, the sight of which chased every other thought from her head. Surrounded by she-oaks and native cherry trees a smoothly curved hollow lay at the foot of a rocky declivity, its sides clothed with ferns almost startlingly green amidst the dried-up grass which covered most of the country around. A silvery cascade of water fell down the rock at the far side, its fine spray blown by the wind over the little hollow, looking in the sunlight like the veil of a fairy bride. Mollie recognized the delicate fronds of maidenhair growing in clumps here and there, and the edge of the pool at the bottom of the hollow was fringed with wild forget-me-nots.

The children scrambled down and seated themselves in a shady spot, untying their sun-bonnets and holding their hot and dusty faces towards the filmy veil of foam.

"It is heavenly," Mollie said, with a long sigh, as she sniffed up the cool scent of the damp ferns. "I don't wonder you call it the Fairy Dell."

"It is Mamma's favourite spot, and we often have picnics here," said Prue, hanging her sun-bonnet on a branch of she-oak that spread above them. "There's the water all ready, you see, and there's a place up there where we can light our fire. Mamma sketches, and we bring our books or we hunt for wild flowers; it is always a nice place to be in. Now we can eat our fruit." She produced a knife from her basket and cut a melon in halves. Its delicate pink flesh and black seeds called forth more enthusiastic admiration from Mollie.

"Let us arrange all the things among the ferns," she suggested, "and gather some forget-me-nots to put beside that pink melon; then the purple grapes; then the peaches—isn't it pretty, Prue?"

Prue nodded her head; she was speechless with melon, and soon the other two were following her example; and melon was followed by peaches.

Then Grizzel jumped to her feet. "There is a cache here," she said.
"Papa often pops something in for a surprise when he passes this way.
I'm going to look; there might be a pencil there, and I want to draw
that fruit."

She soon returned, carrying in her hand a small basket, which yielded up two books, a small sketching-block, and a box of chocolates. "You can have the books," she announced, "one is From Six to Sixteen, by Mrs. Ewing, and the other is Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, by Jules Verne."

Mollie, being the guest, got first choice and took Jules Verne, turning the pictures over with much interest as she compared the Nautilus with the submarine of 1920.

"I do think," she said emphatically, helping herself to a large chocolate-cream with entire disregard of both past and future, "I do think that your father is a perfect peach."

Grizzel glanced up from her drawing to the still-life study before her.
"He is more the shape of a water-melon," she remarked.

Mollie laughed.

"Be quiet, Grizzel," Prue said angrily. "How can you speak so disrespectfully of Papa? You should be ashamed of yourself."

"I'm not disrespectful," Grizzel answered indignantly. "I think it is a beautiful shape."

Mollie laughed again.

"You are disrespectful," Prue repeated, turning very red. "Papa does the dearest, sweetest things, and all your thanks is to make Mollie laugh at him. It is horrible of you, and I don't call it very nice of Mollie."

"I'm not laughing at your father," Mollie said; "I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. I'm laughing at Grizzel. She is so funny."

"I'm not funny," said Grizzel, turning as red as Prudence, "and if you laugh at Papa for being partly the shape of a water-melon, I'll laugh at your father. Your father is an unripe olive and your mother is a bitter almond," she added vindictively.

But if she expected Mollie to be insulted she was disappointed, for that young person went off into fits of cackling giggles which she vainly tried to suppress. At last she rose to her feet.

"I've got the giggles badly," she spluttered out. "I get them sometimes. I think I had better go away for a little till I am better. I really am not laughing at your father. I think he is a perfectly lovely father."

"Then you shouldn't call names," said Prue, still very red. "How would you like me to call your father an apricot?"

"I shouldn't mind in the least," answered Mollie, giggling worse than ever. "You don't understand. I'll go away, and I'll explain when I am better."

She seized her sunbonnet, tucked her book under her arm, climbed up the side of the ferny dell, crossed the track, and ran into the wood on the farther side, leaving Prue and Grizzel to finish the squabble between themselves.

"We have eaten too much, that's what's the matter," she said to herself, as she slowed down to a walk and the giggle became less severe. "This hot sun all the time makes one feel crossish."

She came to a halt at the foot of a hollow gum tree, and stooping a little she peered within. It looked shady and cool, its floor powdered with decayed bark mixed with dead leaves—quite clean enough, she decided, to sit upon and rest until her giggles had finally subsided. She crept in, snuggled down comfortably, opened her book, and soon was deep in the adventures of Professor Arrownax, Ned Land, Captain Nemo, and the rest.

The shadows swung slowly round, the sun climbed higher and higher, and the day grew hotter and hotter, but Mollie, skimming along the bottom of the sea in the Nautilus was oblivious of heat. She was walking in the submarine forest of the Island of Crespo, treading on sand "sown with the impalpable dust of shells", when the sudden cracking of a sun-dried branch near at hand startled her and reminded her that time was passing. She closed her book, crept out of her tree, and set off towards the Dell.

"I wish," she said impatiently to herself, "that Time would find something new to do. His one idea seems to be to pass. He may fly or he may crawl, but he is incessantly passing."

She stood still as she spoke and looked before her. Surely the trees were growing more closely together than they had seemed to do; their tall grey-white trunks repeated themselves in a most bewildering way, and right in her path lay a fallen giant which she was perfectly certain she had not passed before.

"Bother! I have come the wrong way," she said, turning round and retracing her steps. "I remember now, there were some trees with rings cut round their trunks—there they are."

She reached the ringed trees, turned her back upon them, and walked straight on. But she came to a dried-up creek which she had not seen before. She could not have missed seeing it, for it was too wide to jump. And there were more ringed trees.

"I can't be far from the Dell, that's one thing certain. I'll coo-ee."

She coo-eed her best and shrillest, but no answer came. There was no sound but the occasional scamper of some small furry animal or the unhomely call of an Australian parrot or magpie. All around her the monotonous grey trunks stood, as much alike as the pillars of a town-hall, and overhead the blue-green leaves stirred languidly in the warm wind. Mollie was standing, though she did not know it, on primeval forest land.

What she did begin to realize was that she was lost.

"I can't be far away," she repeated to herself. "I wasn't running for five minutes. The point is, how am I to find the way back. Everything is so difficult in this upside-down place; I haven't the least idea which is north and which is south; nor which way the wind blows, nor how the shadows fall, nor anything; and if I go the wrong way I will only get farther and farther from the Dell. The best plan really is to sit down and wait till someone comes. Someone is sure to look for me sooner or later; Dick and Jerry will, anyhow." She looked about her again in search of inspiration. Sitting down and waiting was not a cheerful prospect. Dick and Jerry might whisk away home and leave her behind. Or she might merely wake up suddenly and find herself in the Chauncery morning-room, safe but dull, or—just supposing she didn't! Supposing that she couldn't get back without Prue, and that she turned into an interesting case for the What's-its-name Society, to be read about in learned books!

"I might try climbing a tree," she thought, gazing round in search of something climbable. But the tall, smooth trunks were discouraging; there were few with boughs within her reach, and the few there were were too low to be of any use as observation posts. She sat down and resolutely opened her book. "Never say die till you are dead," she repeated, firmly fastening the Guide's smile on to her face. "I'll read, and coo-ee every third page."

But she no longer walked in the submarine forest; she only sat in a wood and read about other people doing it, lifting her eyes from the page every now and then, and turning her head uneasily from side to side, feeling very lonely in that great, still place!

What was that? A magpie or a human whistle? "—two-three, one-two-three, one—". Someone was whistling the air from Faust. Mollie sprang to her feet and coo-eed with all her might and main. The whistling stopped short, and there was an answering shout in a man's voice. Mollie coo-eed again.

"Hi! You'll have to come to me," the man shouted; "I can't come to you.
Tied here by the leg."

It is not an easy thing to locate a sound in the open air, and though Mollie had had some practice in the course of her Guide work, it was only after several shouts on the man's part and experiments on hers that she at last found herself standing beside Mr. John Smith, who was sitting on the ground with one bootless leg stretched out before him.

"I am glad to see you," he said to Mollie. "I have sprained my ankle rather badly, and was just wondering what to do next. There seemed to be nothing for it but to crawl all the way home, and the prospect was not pleasing."

"I am glad to see you too," said Mollie. "I am lost."

"Lost!" exclaimed the young man. "Oh no, you aren't. I have a compass, and it is not more than a couple of miles or so to Silver Fields, von Greusen's place. I'll show you how to use a compass, and you will be my good angel and go to Silver Fields and ask them to send a horse along, and I will be grateful to you for ever."

"I know how to use a compass, thank you," said Mollie, feeling greatly relieved, "and I will go to Mr. von Greusen's place if you tell me where it is; but first I will bandage up your foot and make it feel easier. I have learnt First Aid. May I take that thing off your hat for a bandage?"—as she noticed the pith helmet and pugaree lying on the ground.

"My pugaree? Good idea! I don't know what First Aid is precisely, but it sounds appropriate. Do you mean you can fix a bandage?"

"Rather," said Mollie, comfortably conscious that she was a First-class Guide and a bright and shining light in this particular line. "How did you sprain your ankle? I suppose you—" she stopped short. She had almost said that she supposed he had tripped over an obstacle in a fit of loverishness. "I suppose your foot just went. That's what mine did."

"I caught it in a rabbit-hole," he answered, "the floor of Australia seems to be perforated with them. Why didn't you coo-ee sooner?"

"I did," Mollie answered, as she unwound the pugaree and took off her patient's sock, "I coo-eed ever so often—oh, dear me! that is a bad foot! I'm afraid you'll be laid up for ever so long. Why didn't you coo-ee?"

"I did," answered Mr. Smith, eyeing the badly swollen and discoloured ankle ruefully. "I coo-eed ever so often too. I suppose we mistook each other for magpies. Next time I'll try a good English shout. Now, what's to happen? D'ye mean to say that I'm to be stuck up in Silver Fields for goodness knows how long with only my own thoughts for company and nothing to do? Oh, ye gods and little fishes!" he groaned disconsolately.

"I'm afraid so," Mollie replied sympathetically. "I sprained my ankle—" she was going to say "the other day" but remembered in time—"once in the holidays, and I had to lie on a sofa all day. It wasn't nearly so dull as I expected though," she ended with a little laugh. As they talked she had been skilfully bandaging the swollen ankle in her best style, which was a style not to be despised by anybody. "Now," she said, as she tucked in the end and fastened it firmly with her Tenderfoot brooch, "now you will be more comfortable. But you must keep quite still. I do wish you were not so far from home; you should not ride. If you do anything foolish now you may be lame all your life; that's what the doctor told me; he was most frightfully firm about it. Your wrist is bleeding—you have cut it."

The young man turned back his shirt sleeve. "It is nothing. A handkerchief twisted round will do. You have done the bandage beautifully."

Mollie arranged the handkerchief. As she did so her eyes fell upon a tattoo-mark, an anchor inside a true-lover's knot. It was an ordinary enough tattoo-mark, but the sight of it struck at Mollie for she had seen it before. The odd impression of last night, which she had forgotten in the various exigences of the situation, came rushing back into her mind. Who did he remind her of? How could she possibly have seen that little mark before?

"My name is John Smith," he said, looking up and finding her eyes fixed questioningly upon him. "I don't think we have met before?"

"I saw you last night at the Campbell's," Mollie replied aloud (while to herself she added, "And where I saw you before that is what I should like to know more than anything else at this present moment"). "I am staying there. It was dark on the balcony and there were a lot of us children; you wouldn't notice me. My name is Mollie—oh, you simply must not twist your leg about like that! Your ankle may be broken; you don't know."

He smiled; his eyes crinkled up and there was a something in the tilt of his mouth. Why was that smile so familiar? Was it the Prince of Wales? No, it was someone she knew much better than she knew the Prince of Wales. (Which wasn't saying very much after all.)

"You are very cheery! So you were there, were you? I never heard such heavenly singing in my life. Von Greusen says that Mrs. Campbell has one of the most beautiful voices in South Australia, and I should say that he has the other. But it isn't only their voices, it's the way they sing, making you think of all the might-have-beens and ought-to-have-beens and never-will-bes—" he stopped, and sighed in a melancholy way, leaning his back against the tree behind him. "I think you had better be starting, Miss Polly. Neither of us will be the worse of getting home."

"Mollie, not Polly. I wish you had not to be left alone. I will be as quick as I can. How shall I describe this place? I think I had better come back with the men."

"No need for that. Tell them I'm by the creek on the way to the olive plantation. They'll know. I have a sister called Polly. I was thinking of her at that moment," he added, with another sigh. "I had a letter from her yesterday and she wants me to go back. The point is, shall I go or shall I not?"

"I don't know, but I think I had better hurry," Mollie said. It had occurred to her that if she "went back" with her usual abruptness, before she delivered her message, Mr. John Smith might be left in an awkward predicament.

He handed over the compass with careful directions. She nodded her head, waved her hand at her distractingly perplexing new acquaintance, and set off. Soon her entire attention was absorbed in finding her way, for, although she had used a compass often enough when Guiding, an Australian forest was something quite new, and to her it seemed as trackless as the ocean, every part of it looked so precisely the same as every other part. Eventually, however, she found herself safely back on the cart-track, though nowhere within sight of the Fairy Dell. She decided to go straight home to the Campbell's house and ask there for help for Mr. John Smith. Mr. von Greusen would probably be out at this hour, and she felt shy of the big bearded men working about the place.

Mamma was in, and heard her story with concern.

"Of course he must come here," she exclaimed, with true Australian hospitality, unquestioning and ungrudging. "He must be properly nursed and fed." Mollie thought that Mamma looked rather pleased than otherwise at the prospect of nursing and feeding a good-looking young man newly out from home. Bridget was called, and between them all a room was got ready and made to look as homelike as possible. "Flowers and books," said Mrs. Campbell, "always make a room look pleasant. I wish I had some photographs. I wonder who his people are. We'll put up a picture of St. Paul's Cathedral, and this little water-colour of a Sussex village; they are not quite the same thing as his mother or sweetheart, but they will be better than nothing." She sighed as she looked at the water-colour. They were great people for sighing, Mollie thought. It must be rather miserable to be homesick so very, very far away from home!

When Prudence and Grizzel, accompanied by the boys, all not a little anxious about Mollie, arrived at home for dinner they found not only the missing Mollie but also Mr. John Smith on the balcony. Mollie ran down the steps to meet them, and gave a highly coloured account of her adventures. Past differences were forgiven and forgotten, and after dinner they all assembled on the balcony again with the benevolent intention of devoting themselves to the entertainment of the interesting invalid.

But Mrs. Campbell did not approve of this plan. "We are too many," she said in her decided way. "Prudence and Mollie may stay; the rest of you must run away for the present. Grizzel can go for a walk with Bridget and Baby; I want a few things from the Store, and they can be brought up in the perambulator. The boys had better go up to Mr. von Greusen's and see about getting Mr. Smith's belongings brought here."

"You might call at the Fairy Dell and get the Gordello," Prudence suggested—for after all she and Grizzel had made the new drink in a fit of remorse—"Mr. Smith will perhaps like to taste it."

The family melted away, and Mamma with the two girls settled down to needlework. Mamma's kindly interest invited confidence under these pleasant circumstances, and it was not long before the young man was pouring his story into her sympathetic ears. Prudence listened spellbound. It was not often that one had romance brought to one's very door—by a hero with a sprained ankle too! Such a romantic affliction! But Mollie was too much preoccupied by that haunting likeness to listen properly to what the hero was saying, once she had ascertained the fact that Mr. Smith belonged to the Campbell's Time, and that therefore she could not possibly have met himself before; it must have been somebody extraordinarily like him. And yet—the number of her friends was not so very great that one could be totally forgotten. She tried not to think about it, but it stuck in the back of her brain in an irritating sort of way and refused to be forgotten.

His story was not at all an uncommon one: a love-affair, a selection of angry parents, lack of money, eternal vows, and a young man in search of a fortune. He had been told that fortunes lay about loose in Australia.

"Not that I mind working," he said. "I like work all right, but it's so slow, and we are getting older all the time. I rather fancied a vineyard; our parents are great on their cellars and might come round to a vineyard and wine. I spent some time in France before coming here, but it was hopeless. They won't look at a foreigner in their wine concerns. As a matter of fact I have some hopes of my own governor relenting. I am his only son, and he is getting tired of keeping me at arm's length. There's nothing really in the way; only he had another wife in view for me, and Margaret's father had another husband. He is rather a cantankerous old party. Too much port wine is what is the matter with them both, that's my opinion; they're turning gouty."

As Mr. John Smith talked he pulled his watch out of his pocket and sprung it open. In the back lay a tiny photograph.

"That's Margaret," he said.

The others bent over the faintly tinted portrait of a young girl, pretty and smiling, her wavy hair rippling on either side of a smooth brow. Mollie glanced at it absent-mindedly; the back of her brain, she felt, was moving to the front; in another moment it would be there.

Mr. Smith looked affectionately at the pretty face. "That is my little girl," he repeated, "and I—I ought to tell you—you are so kind—my name is not really John Smith. I dropped my real name because I wanted to dodge my governor—teach him a lesson, you know, not to play fast and loose with his only son—poor old governor! I have written to him since I came to Silver Fields. My real name is—"

Suddenly Mollie began to laugh. It had come in a flash—the long chair, the bandaged foot on a foot-rest, the watch with its back open, the tattooed anchor and rope on a lean wrist, and above all a pair of dark eyes (so like Dick's) crinkled up in a kindly smile: "You don't blow hard enough, little Polly," someone was saying, "try again." The hair above the dark eyes was white, but Mollie knew.

"It's so funny," she cried, as they all looked at her, Prudence anxiously inquiring if she had "got it again". "I'm all right, Prue, but it's so funny. I know who you are," she laughed again, turning to Mr. Smith. "Your name isn't John Smith at all. You are poor dear Richard. Who was so active. With the gout. And you are—you are my—"

"Hush, Mollie!" said Prue.

* * * * *

Mollie sat up. She was still laughing. Aunt Mary stood beside her in hat and coat, her hands full of cardboard boxes from Buszard's. Grannie sat at the tea-table, and opposite her was old Mrs. Pell, who had put on her bonnet because it would soon be time for her to go. They all looked at Mollie, who continued to laugh.

"It's nothing," she said. "It is only a fit of giggles. I have them sometimes."

"Give the dear child her tea, Mary," said Grannie. "Her nerves are a little highly strung; her grandfather used to laugh just like that—poor dear Richard!"