But Jack was mighty keen on fixing me up with the little girl at Haviland.
He seemed to take it for granted that I was going to fall in love with her
at first sight. He took too many things for granted
as far as I was concerned, and got me into awful tangles sometimes.

`You let me alone, and I'll fix you up, Joe,' he said,
as we rode up to the station. `I'll make it all right with the girl.
You're rather a good-looking chap. You've got the sort of eyes
that take with girls, only you don't know it; you haven't got the go.
If I had your eyes along with my other attractions, I'd be in trouble
on account of a woman about once a-week.'

`For God's sake shut up, Jack,' I said.

Do you remember the first glimpse you got of your wife? Perhaps not
in England, where so many couples grow up together from childhood;
but it's different in Australia, where you may hail from
two thousand miles away from where your wife was born, and yet she may be
a countrywoman of yours, and a countrywoman in ideas and politics too.
I remember the first glimpse I got of Mary.

It was a two-storey brick house with wide balconies and verandahs all round,
and a double row of pines down to the front gate. Parallel at the back
was an old slab-and-shingle place, one room deep and about eight rooms long,
with a row of skillions at the back: the place was used for kitchen,
laundry, servants' rooms, &c. This was the old homestead
before the new house was built. There was a wide, old-fashioned,
brick-floored verandah in front, with an open end; there was ivy
climbing up the verandah post on one side and a baby-rose on the other,