"They don't do a thing? They just _live_--and 'keep house!' All those
women!

"Six years? Likely to be sixty! But I'm not going to wait!"



WHAT DIANTHA DID


CHAPTER II.

AN UNNATURAL DAUGHTER


The brooding bird fulfills her task,
Or she-bear lean and brown;
All parent beasts see duty true,
All parent beasts their duty do,
We are the only kind that asks
For duty upside down.


The stiff-rayed windmill stood like a tall mechanical flower, turning
slowly in the light afternoon wind; its faint regular metallic squeak
pricked the dry silence wearingly. Rampant fuchsias, red-jewelled,
heavy, ran up its framework, with crowding heliotrope and nasturtiums.
Thick straggling roses hung over the kitchen windows, and a row of dusty
eucalyptus trees rustled their stiff leaves, and gave an ineffectual
shade to the house.