I had not much opportunity of persecuting Harold during the daytime.  He and all his subordinates were away all day, busy drafting, sorting, and otherwise pottering with sheep.  But I always, and Miss Augusta sometimes, went to meet them coming home in the evening.  It was great fun.  The dogs yelped and jumped about.  The men were dirty with much dust, and smelt powerfully of sheep, and had worked hard all day in the blazing sun, but they were never too tired for fun, or at night to dance, after they had bathed and dressed.  We all had splendid horses.  They reared and pranced; we galloped and jumped every log which came in our path.  Jokes, repartee, and nonsense rattled off our tongues.  We did not worry about thousands of our fellows—­starving and reeking with disease in city slums.  We were selfish.  We were heedless.  We were happy.  We were young.

Harold Beecham was a splendid host.  Anyone possessed of the least talent for enjoyment had a pleasant time as his guest.  He was hospitable in a quiet unostentatious manner.  His overseer, jackeroos, and other employees were all allowed the freedom of home, and could invite whom they pleased to Five-Bob Downs.  It is all very well to talk of good hosts.  Bah, I could be a good hostess myself if I had Harold Beecham’s superior implements of the art!  With an immense station, plenty of house-room, tennis courts, musical instruments; a river wherein to fish, swim, and boat; any number of horses, vehicles, orchards, gardens, guns, and ammunition no object, it is easy to be a good host.

I had been just a week at Five-Bob when uncle Julius came to take me home, so I missed the shearing.  Caddagat had been a dull hole without me, he averred, and I must return with him that very day.  Mr and Miss Beecham remonstrated.  Could I not be spared at least a fortnight longer?  It would be lonely without me.  Thereupon uncle Jay-Jay volunteered to procure Miss Benson from Wyambeet as a substitute.  Harold declined the offer with thanks.

“The schemes of youngsters are very transparent,” said uncle Jay-Jay and Miss Augusta, smiling significantly at us.  I feigned to be dense, but Harold smiled as though the insinuation was not only known, but also agreeable to him.

Uncle was inexorable, so home I had to go.  It was sweet to me to hear from the lips of my grandmother and aunt that my absence had been felt.

As a confidante aunt Helen was the pink of perfection—­tactful and sympathetic.  My feather-brained chatter must often have bored her, but she apparently was ever interested in it.

I told her long yarns of how I had spent my time at the Beechams; of the deafening ducts Harold and I had played on the piano; and how he would persist in dancing with me, and he being so tall and broad, and I so small, it was like being stretched on a hay-rack, and very fatiguing.  I gave a graphic account of the arguments—­tough ones they were too—­that Miss Augusta had with the overseer on religion, and many other subjects; of one jackeroo who gabbed never-endingly about his great relations at home; another who incessantly clattered about spurs, whips, horses, and sport; and the third one—­Joe Archer—­who talked literature and trash with me.