Under the Ti-Trees [pp. 855-860]

UNDER THE Ti- TREES.
boy too; so sweet to note the Rider trying painfully to divest
himself of his acquired bush ways, and know that this was done
for her; so sweet to wander down by the creek, or in,the unnatural moist stillness of the ti-trees, and listen-to the tender
words of which her young life had been empty; so sweet that
perhaps-well, little Willie was not less dear than before, but he
was no longer her all.
And one fair autumn eve they three had wandered down to
the creek, down where the maiden-hair hung in pale-green
masses over the reflecting water; the hum of the locusts was in
the air, a kingfisher flashed across the rushes, a faint sound
reached them from among the ti-trees as the echo of a passing
bell. At last little madam's voice broke the silence:
"I must go on; I have a message to give for Mrs. Sims."
"Let Sonnie go," said the Rider; "he knows his way about."
"'Es, moder," lisped the child, "'et me do'ike a big boy."
She demurred with a mother's tremors.
"The child's safe enough," urged her lover; then he added
in a whisper: "we are never really alone, darling."
She gave in at that; with one last kiss the boy sped away,
and the mother listened to the Rider's love-tones, which the
sedges caught up in rustling whispers. How beautiful life was,
with the evening's hush and the morrow's hope upon it!
Suddenly the mother's heart stood still: "Hush! what was
that?"
The Rider laughed: " The crows, my girl;'tis their hour."
She shook her head: "No, something has happened; I heard
or felt something. Oh! if the child-Willie? little Willie?"
She had bounded away with that cry, rushed through the
adjoining paddock as fast as her beating heart and failing limbs
could carry her, and there-yes, there, by the fence, was her
darling, pale, senseless, a great bruise on his sweet forehead,
and the Rider's favorite mare standing close by
She had him buried down among the ti-trees. She was
sorry afterwards to have laid him in so sad and sunless a spot;
but at the time the oppressive gloom harmonized with her own
misery; the cry of the bell-bird seemed to her like a church's
chime near her darling, and she knew of a spot close by where
she could gather golden immortelles to lay on the tiny mound.
So they left him beneath the ti-trees where the wild doves
gather.
When she came back, with her set white face in its black
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[Mar.,