In these amusements time passed pleasantly enough, and by the time
school-work was resumed Mary Grant had become one of the family.
Of Hugh she at first saw little. His work took him out on the
run all day long, looking after sheep in the paddocks, or perhaps
toiling day after day in the great, dusty drafting-yards. In the
cool of the afternoon the two girls would often canter over the
four miles or so of timbered country to the yards, and wait till
Hugh had finished his day's work. As a rule, Poss or Binjie, perhaps
both, were in attendance to escort Miss Harriott, with the result
that Hugh and Mary found themselves paired off to ride home together.
Before long he found himself looking forward to these rides with
more anxiety than he cared to acknowledge, and in a very short time
he was head over ears in love with her.
Any man, being much alone with any woman in a country house, will
fall in love with her; but a man such as Hugh Gordon, ardent,
imaginative, and very young, meeting every day a woman as beautiful
as Mary Grant, was bound to fall a victim. He soon became her
absolute worshipper. All day long, in the lonely rides through the
bush, in the hot and dusty hours at the sheep-yards, through the
pleasant, lazy canter home in the cool of the evening, his fancies
were full of her--her beauty and her charm.
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