Page 17 - An Australian Lassie

lay between their home and their grandfather's. Betty strove to instil energy into her listless brother, telling
him stories of a golden future in store for him. But at the two-rail fence below "Coral Tsland Brook," Cyril
came to a standstill, and urged Betty, who was under it in a trice and on her feet again, to "come along home."

Betty turned her ghastly face towards him indignantly. "T won't," she said fiercely. "Give me the baby and go
home yourself if you like."

Between the outer world of bush and the house was a slip of ground called the banana grove, and known in
story to both boy and girl, as the play-place of their mother.

Cyril followed Betty through this grove, trying to make up his mind as he went, whether to go or stay. To stay
and take his part in the proceedings; to do and be bold--as an inner voice kept urging him--to blend his moans
with Betty's, and carry the heavy baby; or to turn upon his heels, and fly through the darkness from these
horrid haunted grounds where his grandsire, and the great emus and dogs lived; where John Brown stated he
had his dwelling--away from all these terrors to his small cottage home on the other edge of the bush, where
were parents and sisters, music and lights--and another voice urged this.

So he neither followed Betty nor went home; but, in dreadful doubt and great fear, he hung between the two
courses in the banana grove, and shivered at the tree-trunks and the rustling leaves and the stray patches of
moonlight.

And Betty went forward alone with the baby. Her heart was beating in a sickening way, but her courage was,
as usual, equal to the occasion. Tt was far easier to her to go forward than backward now, and she braced
herself up with a few of her stock phrases--"He won't eat me anyway"; "Tt'll be all the same in a hundred
years"; "No Bruce is afraid ever."

A great bay window jutted into the darkness and gave out a blaze of light. This was the lowest room in the
tower portion of the house and was, as Betty knew, her grandfather's study.

Betty's mind was swiftly made up. All fear had left her, and she stepped into the soft moonlight--a ghost
indeed.

She called Cyril, and her voice was so imperative that he quitted his sheltering tree and ran to where she stood
on the edge of the grove.

"Take Baby," she said whisperingly; "T can't do what T want with her in my arms."

"Come home, B--B--Betty," implored the small youth--and his teeth chattered as he spoke--"T--T don't want to
be adopted. T---- "

"Hush!" urged Betty, and filled his arms with the baby. "T--T don't want to be r--rich," cried Cyril. "Tt's
b--b--better to be poor."

"H--sh!" said Betty again.

"T--T don't want to be like a c--camel!" whimpered the boy. "R--remember about rich men getting to Heaven."

"Stay close here with Baby," ordered the little ghost, and the next second she had glided away over the path to
the verandah. She went close to the window--three blinds had been left undrawn and the window panes ran
down to the verandah floor. Surely the room had been designed expressly for this night.

Cyril, in horror, beheld his sister creep to the first window and peep in; creep to the second--to the third.