with his team, drawing in a load of bark to roof the hay shed, and
that Harry Warden was down at the drafting yards, putting in a new
trough to hold an arsenical solution, through which the sheep had
to tramp to cure their feet; and that everybody else was away out
on some business or other. But the young lady stuck to her point,
and had the groom and the wood-and-water boy paraded, they being
the only two available. The groom was an English importation, and
earned her approval by standing in a rigid and deferential attitude,
and saying "Yes, Miss," and "No, Miss," when spoken to; but the
wood-and-water boy stood with his arms akimbo and his mouth open,
and when she asked him how he liked being on the station he said,
"Oh, it's not too bad," accompanying his remark with a sickly grin
that nearly earned him summary dismissal.

The young lady returned to the house in rather a sharp temper, and
found Hugh standing by a cart, which had just got back with her
shipwrecked luggage.

"Well, Miss Grant," he said, "the things are pretty right. The
water went down in an hour or so, and the luggage on the top only
got a little wetting--just a wave now and again. How have you been
getting on?"

"Not at all well," she laughed. "I don't understand the people
here. I will get you to take me round before I do another thing.
It is so different from England. Are you sure my clothes are all
right?"

"I can't be sure, of course, but you can unpack them as soon as
you like."