We proceeded direct to the dining-room, and had not been there long when Mr Beecham entered with the little girl on his shoulder.  Miss Beecham had told me she was Minnie Benson, daughter of Harold’s married overseer on Wyambeet, his adjoining station.  Miss Beecham considered it would have been more seemly for her nephew to have selected a little boy as a play-thing, but his sentiments regarding boys were that they were machines invented for the torment of adults.

“Well, O’Doolan, what sort of a day has it been?” Harold inquired, setting his human toy upon the floor.

“Fine wezzer for yim duts,” she promptly replied.

“Harold, it is shameful to teach a little innocent child such abominable slang; and you might give her a decent nickname,” said Miss Beecham.

“O’Doolan, this is Miss Melvyn, and you have to do the same to her as you do to me.”

The little thing held out her arms to me.  I took her up, and she hugged and kissed me, saying: 

“I luz oo, I luz oo,” and turning to Mr Beecham, “zat anuff?

“Yes, that will do,” he said; and she struggled to be put down.

Three jackeroos, an overseer, and two other young men came in, were introduced to me, and then we began dinner.

O’Doolan sat on a high chair beside Mr Beecham, and he attended to all her wants.  She did everything he did, even taking mustard, and was very brave at quelling the tears that rose to the doll-like blue eyes.  When Mr Beecham wiped his moustache, it was amusing to see her also wipe an imaginary one.

After dinner the jackeroos and the three other men repaired to a sitting-room in the backyard, which was specially set apart for them, and where they amused themselves as they liked.  My host and hostess, myself, and the child, spent the evening in a tiny sitting-room adjoining the dining-room.  Miss Beecham entertained me with conversation and the family albums, and Harold amused himself entirely with the child.

Once when they were absent for a few minutes, Miss Beecham told me it was ridiculous the way he fussed with the child, and that he had her with him more than half his time.  She also asked me what I thought of her nephew.  I evaded the question by querying if he was always so quiet and good-tempered.

“Oh dear, no.  He is considered a particularly bad-tempered man.  Not one of the snarling nasty tempers, but—­”

Here the re-entry of the owner of the temper put a stop to this conversation.

Harold gave O’Doolan rides on his back, going on all-fours.  She shouted in childish glee, and wound up by curling her small proportions on his broad chest, and going to sleep there.

Mrs Benson had sent for little O’Doolan, and Harold took her home next day.  He invited me to accompany him, so we set out in the sulky with O’Doolan on my lap.  It was a pleasant drive of twelve miles to and from Wyambeet.  O’Doolan was much distressed at parting from Mr Beecham, but he promised to come for her again shortly.