with white, flew chattering from log to log; larks sprang singing up into the bright, elastic air, and the whole stretch glistened with wet light.
By the time Millicent had walked another mile, surmounted a ridge and reached the house beyond, the Scandinavian settler to whom it belonged, industrious and “fore-handed” as “Scandy” settlers are wont to be, had already finished his milking. The cows were being driven back to the paddock by a couple of sturdy urchins, and the settler himself was loading up his milk-cart. His wife, with a blue handkerchief over her yellow head, was busy washing in the open. She had a tin bath, a fire of logs, and three kerosene-tins full of water upon it, by way of equipment, and, as Millicent passed, was giving orders with a shrill emphasis to a plump little flaxen-haired daughter at the house door. “Melon jam, now, you mind!” Millicent heard her insist—pie-melons are good and fleshy, and one of them will provide quite a large quantity of jam, but the younger and less thrifty members of the family have been known not infrequently to prefer apricots.
Over the “Scandy” garden fence, beside the road, there leant a tall white poplar, its silver leaves already transmuted by April’s finger into the purest gold. It seemed to light up the air like a great, glowing lamp, and the radiant blue of the sky looked amazingly deeper and richer seen through its exquisite filigree, so delicate, alas! so frail . . . like little golden birds, a score of leaves came gently fluttering and twisting through the air as Millicent went by, and the ground beneath was full of faded wealth. Close to the poplar, a wattle was showing
