'Yes, Mrs Head. I've knocked round all about out there.'

She sat up straight, and put the tips of her fingers to the side of her forehead and knitted her brows. This was a trick she had--she often did it during the evening. And when she did that she seemed to forget what she'd said last.

She smoothed her forehead, and clasped her hands in her lap.

'Oh, I'm so glad to meet somebody from the back country, Mr Ellis,'

she said. 'Walter so seldom brings a stranger here, and I get tired of talking to the same people about the same things, and seeing the same faces. You don't know what a relief it is, Mr Ellis, to see a new face and talk to a stranger.'

'I can quite understand that, Mrs Head,' I said. And so I could. I never stayed more than three months in one place if I could help it.

She looked into the fire and seemed to try to think. The Boss straightened up and stroked her head with his big sun-browned hand, and then put his arm round her shoulders. This brought her back.

'You know we had a station out on the Lachlan, Mr Ellis. Did Walter ever tell you about the time we lived there?'

'No,' I said, glancing at the Boss. 'I know you had a station there; but, you know, the Boss doesn't talk much.'

'Tell Jack, Maggie,' said the Boss; 'I don't mind.'

She smiled. 'You know Walter, Mr Ellis,' she said. 'You won't mind him.

He doesn't like me to talk about the children; he thinks it upsets me, but that's foolish: it always relieves me to talk to a stranger.' She leaned forward, eagerly it seemed, and went on quickly: 'I've been wanting to tell you about the children ever since Walter spoke to me about you. I knew you would understand directly I saw your face. These town people don't understand. I like to talk to a Bushman. You know we lost our children out on the station. The fairies took them. Did Walter ever tell you about the fairies taking the children away?'

This was a facer. 'I--I beg pardon,' I commenced, when Andy gave me a dig in the back. Then I saw it all.

'No, Mrs Head. The Boss didn't tell me about that.'

'You surely know about the Bush Fairies, Mr Ellis,' she said, her big eyes fixed on my face--'the Bush Fairies that look after the little ones that are lost in the Bush, and take them away from the Bush if they are not found? You've surely heard of them, Mr Ellis? Most Bushmen have that I've spoken to. Maybe you've seen them? Andy there has?' Andy gave me another dig.

'Of course I've heard of them, Mrs Head,' I said; 'but I can't swear that I've seen one.'

'Andy has. Haven't you, Andy?'

'Of course I have, Mrs Head. Didn't I tell you all about it the last time we were home?'

'And didn't you ever tell Mr Ellis, Andy?'

'Of course he did!' I said, coming to Andy's rescue; 'I remember it now.

You told me that night we camped on the Bogan river, Andy.'

'Of course!' said Andy.

'Did he tell you about finding a lost child and the fairy with it?'

'Yes,' said Andy; 'I told him all about that.'

'And the fairy was just going to take the child away when Andy found it, and when the fairy saw Andy she flew away.'

'Yes,' I said; 'that's what Andy told me.'

'And what did you say the fairy was like, Andy?' asked Mrs Head, fixing her eyes on his face.

'Like. It was like one of them angels you see in Bible pictures, Mrs Head,' said Andy promptly, sitting bolt upright, and keeping his big innocent grey eyes fixed on hers lest she might think he was telling lies. 'It was just like the angel in that Christ-in-the-stable picture we had at home on the station--the right-hand one in blue.'

She smiled. You couldn't call it an idiotic smile, nor the foolish smile you see sometimes in melancholy mad people. It was more of a happy childish smile.

'I was so foolish at first, and gave poor Walter and the doctors a lot of trouble,' she said. 'Of course it never struck me, until afterwards, that the fairies had taken the children.'

She pressed the tips of the fingers of both hands to her forehead, and sat so for a while; then she roused herself again--

'But what am I thinking about? I haven't started to tell you about the children at all yet. Auntie! bring the children's portraits, will you, please? You'll find them on my dressing-table.'

The old woman seemed to hesitate.

'Go on, Auntie, and do what I ask you,' said Mrs Head. 'Don't be foolish. You know I'm all right now.'

'You mustn't take any notice of Auntie, Mr Ellis,' she said with a smile, while the old woman's back was turned. 'Poor old body, she's a bit crotchety at times, as old women are. She doesn't like me to get talking about the children. She's got an idea that if I do I'll start talking nonsense, as I used to do the first year after the children were lost. I was very foolish then, wasn't I, Walter?'

'You were, Maggie,' said the Boss. 'But that's all past. You mustn't think of that time any more.'

'You see,' said Mrs Head, in explanation to me, 'at first nothing would drive it out of my head that the children had wandered about until they perished of hunger and thirst in the Bush. As if the Bush Fairies would let them do that.'

'You were very foolish, Maggie,' said the Boss; 'but don't think about that.'

The old woman brought the portraits, a little boy and a little girl: they must have been very pretty children.

'You see,' said Mrs Head, taking the portraits eagerly, and giving them to me one by one, 'we had these taken in Sydney some years before the children were lost; they were much younger then. Wally's is not a good portrait; he was teething then, and very thin. That's him standing on the chair. Isn't the pose good? See, he's got one hand and one little foot forward, and an eager look in his eyes. The portrait is very dark, and you've got to look close to see the foot. He wants a toy rabbit that the photographer is tossing up to make him laugh. In the next portrait he's sitting on the chair--he's just settled himself to enjoy the fun.

But see how happy little Maggie looks! You can see my arm where I was holding her in the chair. She was six months old then, and little Wally had just turned two.'

She put the portraits up on the mantel-shelf.

'Let me see; Wally (that's little Walter, you know)--Wally was five and little Maggie three and a half when we lost them. Weren't they, Walter?'

'Yes, Maggie,' said the Boss.

'You were away, Walter, when it happened.'

'Yes, Maggie,' said the Boss--cheerfully, it seemed to me--'I was away.'

'And we couldn't find you, Walter. You see,' she said to me, 'Walter--Mr Head--was away in Sydney on business, and we couldn't find his address.

It was a beautiful morning, though rather warm, and just after the break-up of the drought. The gra.s.s was knee-high all over the run. It was a lonely place; there wasn't much bush cleared round the homestead, just a hundred yards or so, and the great awful scrubs ran back from the edges of the clearing all round for miles and miles--fifty or a hundred miles in some directions without a break; didn't they, Walter?'

'Yes, Maggie.'

'I was alone at the house except for Mary, a half-caste girl we had, who used to help me with the housework and the children. Andy was out on the run with the men, mustering sheep; weren't you, Andy?'

'Yes, Mrs Head.'

'I used to watch the children close as they got to run about, because if they once got into the edge of the scrub they'd be lost; but this morning little Wally begged hard to be let take his little sister down under a clump of blue-gums in a corner of the home paddock to gather b.u.t.tercups. You remember that clump of gums, Walter?'