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Pageant

V

V

The old Comyn hut had always been dear to Jenny. Next to the bush clearing beyond the ram-paddock … how that little girl Jenny had loved to play, to read, to dream here where the 'possums had torn the paper from the walls and birds nested in the rafters! It was hoary with the memories of her race; ancient history as history went in a colony not sixty years old and already preparing its fourth generation. Brevis and Jenny (brave flowers in a soil which to them had never been alien) looked round the rotting place with a due reverence.

page 277

"Some of these logs in the walls must be two feet thick," said Brevis. "I'm glad they haven't been taken for gate-posts, but I should have thought your father——"

"It's Grandpapa won't have anything touched. Voilà le beau sentiment!" Jenny cried. "See, Brevis. He and Grandmamma used to sleep up in that loft. There was a ladder; I can well remember the ladder. Can you imagine stately Grandmamma climbing ladders?"

Jenny's wide flop hat had fallen back on her shoulders. Her face with its drawn and netted hair had an elfish, ethereal fantasy in the gold light falling through the broken pane. Brevis took her suddenly in his arms. "You witch! Jenny, you know … you know how I love you…."