Page 38 - An Australian Lassie

"And T'm going to leave school," she said.

Again Mona nodded and waited.

"T've to go home," said Dot, and she put her head down on Mona's shoulder heavily.

"T've to go home too," said Mona, and she sighed, "right away to the Richmond river, where you girls never
come."

"My home," said Dot, "is like a little plain, hedged round with prickly pear, and put on the top of a mountain.
No one ever comes in, and we never go out."

"Poor little Thea," said Mona.

"And we're very poor," went on Dorothea with strange recklessness; "we ought to be rich, but we're not, and
the house is full of children, and there's never any peace from morning till night."

Mona grew crimson. She wanted to say something very much, and she lacked the courage. Tnstead she asked
how old were the children, as if she did not know!

"There's Betty," said Dot, "she's to come here when T leave, and she won't enjoy it a bit--she's such a
romp--and there's Cyril, they're both about twelve. And there's Nancy, she's six, and the baby."

"T wish," said Mona, "T wish they belonged to me."

"How can T practise with them everywhere about. How can T read, how can T paint even, write my book, do
anything, with them everywhere?" asked Dot dismally. "They just fill the house."

Again Mona stumbled to what she wanted to say, and stopped. Dot would say she was "lecturing." Tt would
never do.

"You're rich," said pretty Dot pouting; "you can have everything you want, do anything, go anywhere."

A few puckers got into Mona's high forehead.

"Once," she said, "T had four sisters, all younger than myself, and they all died. T told you, didn't T?"

"But it's long ago," said Dot. "Three years ago since the baby died. You must have forgotten."

"T'd promised my mother, when she was dying, to be a mother to them. Father and aunt made me go to school,
and all the time T was counting on when T should leave, and be an elder sister."

Dot opened her eyes very wide.

"Why did you want to be an elder sister?" she asked.

Mona still looked red and ashamed.

"You should read The Flower of the Family," she said, and "The Eldest of Seven, Holding in Trust. You'd
know then."

Dorothea had read the last, and she began to see and understand.