Seven Little Australians | Page 7

he called; and there entered Nell.
She was carrying very carefully a little tray covered with a snow-white
doyley, and on it were a glass of milk and a plate of mulberries. She
placed it before him.
"I thought perhaps you would like a little lunch, Father," she said
gently; and Pip was seized with a sudden coughing fit.
"My DEAR child!" he said.
He looked at it very thoughtfully.
"The last glass of milk I had, Nellie, was when I was Pip's age, and was
Barlow's fag at Rugby. It made me ill, and I have never touched it
since."
"But this won't hurt you. You will drink this?" She gave him one of her
most beautiful looks.
"I would as soon drink the water the maids wash up in, my child." He
took a mulberry, ate it, and made a wry face. "They're not, fit to eat."
"After you've eaten about six you don't notice they're sour," she said
eagerly. But he pushed them away.
"I'll take your word for it." Then he looked at her curiously. "What
made you think of bringing me anything, Nellie? I don't ever remember
you doing so before."
"I thought you might be hungry writing here so long," she said gently;
and Pip choked again badly, and she withdrew.
Outside in the blazing sunshine Judy was mowing the lawn.
They only kept one man, and, as his time was so taken up with the

horses and stable work generally, the garden was allowed to fall into
neglect. More than once the Captain had spoken vexedly of the untidy
lawns, and said he was ashamed for visitors to come to the house.
So Judy, brimming over with zeal, armed herself with an abnormally
large scythe, and set to work on the long, long grass.
"Good heavens, Helen! you'll cut your legs off!" called her father, in an
agitated tone.
He had stepped out on to the front veranda for a mild cigar after the
mulberry just as she brought her scythe round with an admirable sweep
and decapitated a whole army of yellow-helmeted dandelions.
She turned and gave him a beautiful smile. "Oh, no, Father!--why, I'm
quite a dab at mowing."
She gave it another alarming but truly scientific sweep.
"See that--and th-a-at--and tha-a-a-at!"
"Th-a-at" carried off a fragment of her dress, and "tha-a-a-at" switched
off the top of a rose-bush; but there are details to everything, of course.
"Accidents WILL happen, even to the best regulated grass-cutters," she
said composedly, and raising the scythe for a fresh circle.
"Stop immediately, Helen! Why ever can't you go and play quietly with
your doll, and not do things like this?" said her father irascibly.
"An' I was afther doin' it just to pleasure him," she said, apparently
addressing the dandelions.
"Well, it won't 'pleasure him' to have to provide you with cork legs and
re-stock the garden," he said dryly: "Put it down."
"Sure, an' it's illigence itsilf this side: you wouldn't be afther leaving
half undone, like a man with only one cheek shaved."
Judy affected an Irish brogue at some occult reason of her own.
"Sure an' if ye'd jist stip down and examine it yirself, it's quite aisy ye'd
be in yer moind."
The Captain hid a slight smile in his moustache. The little girl looked
so comical, standing there in her short old pink frock, a
broken-brimmed hat on her tangle of dark curls, her eyes sparkling, her
face flushed, the great scythe in her hands, and the saucy words on her
lips.
He came down and examined it: it was done excellently well, like most
of the things miss Judy attempted--mischief always included: and her
little black-stockinged legs were still in a good state of preservation.

"Hum! Well, you can finish it then, as Pat's busy. How did you learn to
mow, young lady of wonderful accomplishments?" (he looked at her
questioningly); "and what made you set yourself such a task?"
Judy gave her curls a quick push off her hot forehead.
"(A) Faix, it was inborn in me," she answered instantly; "and (B)--sure,
and don't I lo-o-ove you and delaight to plaize you?"
He went in again slowly, thoughtfully. Judy always mystified him. He
understood her the least of any of his children, and sometimes the
thought of her worried him. At present she was only a sharp, clever,
and frequently impertinent child; but he felt she was utterly different
from the other six, and it gave him an aggrieved kind of feeling when
he thought about it, which was not very often.
He remembered her own mother had often said she trembled for Judy's
future. That restless fire of hers that shone out of her dancing eyes, and
glowed scarlet on her cheeks in excitement, and lent amazing energy