An Australian Lassie

e Court Judge, were Dorothea Bruce's "intimate" friends. Mona Parbury was her only "bosom" friend. Thus she defined them herself when speaking of the

o subtle to be described, but school-girls all the world over, and tho

different mould from Dorothea. She was a heavily built girl, who looked at sixteen as though her teens were a year or two behind her. Her features were pronounced-high cheek-bones, square chin, high f

ten very foolish thoughts; when she made her the heroine of her stories; and wrote little poems to her as-"her love"-a

quite loose about her shoulders; her eyes were blue and sunshiny and lashed by dark curling lashes; her mouth was small and red, and her complexion del

all her most troublesome sums, brushed and curled her hair; bore many of her punishments; brought her numberless fal-lals (keepsakes she call

h the same sort of love as Mona Parbury now gave to Dorothea. And it was owing to this old lo

new anything about poverty-no one but Dorothea. As

ve parlourmaids and housemaids and nursemaids, and kitchenmaids and cooks a

baby. She longed to be rich, and to have pretty things to wear and a handsome house to live in, but she never talked of her pove

quite familiar with the names and doings of the great society dames. She even learned

se, the neat table, the daily constitutional, the morning and evening prayer-time, and

would not be draped, when the elegancies of life were left behind in the city, when the twins an

till Monday, when there would no longer be any school days to be lived by her-would quit

ll the days of discipline and pleasant duty, and the ugly slack days, whe

bear the thought of it

ant chimney. Every moment she expected the prayer-bell to ring, and meanwhile, as it was not ringing,

ty-nine-twenty-nine without Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays. Twenty-ni

ng and began to cry. She did not cry in the vigorous whole-hearted way in which Betty cried, but she sighed heavily, and sobbed g

aw her darling Thea in tears! She was not given to light impulsive movements

e matter? Miss Cowdell has been bullying you for

pelessly, "nothing ha

Never mind-there are plenty more. Not that? What

rs ran down

ly the end of t

nod

to leave scho

a nodded

, and she put her head down

she sighed, "right away to the Richm

d round with prickly pear, and put on the top of a

le Thea,"

s; "we ought to be rich, but we're not, and the house is full of

much, and she lacked the courage. Instead she aske

he won't enjoy it a bit-she's such a romp-and there's Cyril, they'

ona, "I wish the

d, how can I paint even, write my book, do anything, with the

d to say, and stopped. Dot would say

uting; "you can have everything y

got into Mona'

rs, all younger than myself, and th

"Three years ago since the baby

them. Father and aunt made me go to school, and all the time

her eyes

to be an elder s

looked red

ily," she said, and "The Eldest of Sev

last, and she began

other and sisters,

she herself was an elder sister, that she was the eldes

go home," said Mona. "And I've only twenty-nine days,

ys," whispered Dot, twining he

ch other's bosom

scanned Thea closely, seeing that she had been crying, an