CHAPTER XI.—A CHRISTMAS OFFERING.

In the Melbourne shops that Christmas Eve the younger Teesdale had been perpetrating untold acts of extravagance, for two of which a certain very bad character was entirely and solely responsible. Thus with next day's Christmas dinner there was a bottle of champagne, and the healths of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver, and of Miriam their daughter, were drunk successively, and with separate honours. Missy thereat seemed to suffer somewhat from her private feelings, as indeed she did suffer, but those feelings were not exactly what they were suspected to be at the time. She was wondering how much longer she could keep up this criminal pretence and act this infamous part. And as she wondered, a delirious recklessness overcame her, and emptying her glass she jumped to her feet to confess to them all then and there; but the astonished eye of Mrs. Teesdale went like cold steel to her heart, and she wished them long life and prosperity instead. She found herself seated once more with a hammering heart and sensations that drove her to stare hard at the old woman's unsympathetic face, as her own one chance of remaining cool till the end of the meal. And yet a worse moment was to follow hard upon the last.

Missy had made straight for the nearest and the thickest shelter, which happened to underlie that dark jagged rim of river-timber at which old Teesdale was so fond of gazing. She had thrown herself face downward on a bank beside the sluggish brown stream; her fingers were interwoven under her face, her thumbs stuck deep into her ears. So she did not hear the footsteps until they were close beside her, when she sat up suddenly with a face of blank terror.

It was only John William. "Who did you think it was?" said he, smiling as he sat down beside her.

Missy was trembling dreadfully. "How was I to know?" she answered nervously. "It might have been a bushranger, mightn't it?"

"Well, hardly," replied John William, as seriously as though the question had been put in the best of good faith. And it now became obvious that he also had something on his mind and nerves, for he shifted a little further away from Missy, and sat frowning at the dry brown grass, and picking at it with his fingers.

"Anyhow, you startled me," said Missy, as she arranged the carroty fringe that had been shamefully dishevelled a moment before. "I am very easily startled, you see."

"I am very sorry. I do apologise, I'm sure! And I'll go away again this minute, Missy, if you like." He got to his knees with the words, which were spoken in a more serious tone than ever.

"Oh, no, don't go away. I was only moping. I am glad you've come."

"Thank you, Missy."

"But now you have come, you've got to talk and cheer me up. See? There's too many things to think about on a Christmas Day—when—when you're so far away from everybody."

John William agreed and sympathised. "The fact is I had something to show you," he added; "that's why I came."

"Then show away," said Missy, forcing a smile. "Something in a cardboard box, eh?"

"Yes. Will you open it and tell me how you like it?" He handed her the box that he had taken out of his breast-pocket. Missy opened it and produced a very yellow bauble of sufficiently ornate design.

"Well, I'm sure! A bangle!"

"Yes; but what do you think of it?" asked John William anxiously. He had also blushed very brown.

"Oh, of course I think it's beautiful—beautiful!" exclaimed Missy, with unmistakable sincerity. "But who's it for? That's what I want to know," she added, as she scanned him narrowly.

"Can't you guess?"

"Well, let's see. Yes—you're blushing! It's for your young woman, that's evident."

John William edged nearer.

"It's for the young lady—the young lady I should like to be mine—only I'm so far below her," he began in a murmur. Then he looked at her hard. "Missy, for God's sake forgive me," he cried out, "but it's for you!"

"Nonsense!"

"But I mean it. I got it last night. Do, please, have it."

"No," said Missy firmly. "Thank you ever so very awfully much; but you must take it back." And she held it out to him with a still hand.

"I can't take it back—I won't!" cried young Teesdale excitedly. "Consider it only as a Christmas box—surely your father's godson may give you a little bit of a Christmas box? That's me, Missy, and anything else I've gone and said you must forgive and forget too, for it was all a slip. I didn't mean to say it, Missy, I didn't indeed. I hope I know my position better than that. But this here little trumpery what-you-call-it, you must accept it as a Christmas present from us all. Yes, that's what you must do; for I'm bothered if I take it back."

"You must," repeated Missy very calmly. "I think you mean to break my heart between you with your kindness. Here's the box and here's the bangle."

John William looked once and for all into the resolute light eyes. Then first he took the box and put the lid on it, and stowed it away in his breastpocket; and after that he took that gold bangle, very gingerly, between finger and thumb, and spun it out into the centre of the brown river, where it made bigger, widening bangles, that took the best part of a minute to fail and die away. Then everything was stiller than before; and stillest of all were the man and the woman who stood facing each other on the bank, speckled with the steep sunlight that came down on them like rain through the leaves of the river-timber overhead.

"That was bad," said Missy at last. "Something else was worse. It's not much good your trying to hedge matters with me; and for my part I'm going to speak straight and plain for once. If I thought that you'd gone and fallen in love with me—as sure as we're standing here, Jack, I'd put myself where you've put that bangle."

Her hand pointed to the place. There was neither tremor in the one nor ripple upon the other.

"But why?" Teesdale could only gasp.

"Because I'm so far below you."

"Missy! Missy!" he was beginning passionately, but she checked him at once.

"Let well alone, Jack. I've spoken God's truth. I'm not going to say any more; only when you know all about me—as you may any day now—perhaps even to-day—don't say that I told nothing but lies. That's all. Now must I go back to the house, or will you?"

He glanced towards the river with unconscious significance. She shook her head and smiled. He hung his, and went away.

Once more Missy was alone among the river-timber; once more she flung herself down upon the short, dry grass, but this time upon her back, while her eyes and her ears were wide open.

A cherry-picker was frivolling in the branches immediately above her. From the moment it caught her eye, Missy seemed to take great interest in that cherry-picker's proceedings. She had wasted innumerable cartridges on these small birds, but that was in her blood-thirsty days, now of ancient history, and there had never been any ill-feeling between Missy and the cherry-pickers even then. One solitary native cat was all the fair game that she had slaughtered in her time. She now took to wondering why it was that these animals were never to be seen upon a tree in day-time; and as she wondered, her eyes hunted all visible forks and boughs; and as she hunted, a flock of small parrots came whirring like a flight of arrows, and called upon Missy's cherry-picker, and drove him from the branches overhead. But the parrots were a new interest, and well worth watching. They had red beaks and redder heads and tartan wings and emerald breasts. Missy had had shots at these also formerly; even now she shut her left eye and pretended that her right fore-finger was a gun, and felt certain of three fine fellows with one barrel had it really been a gun. Then at last she turned on her elbow towards the river, and opened her mouth to talk to herself. And after a long half-hour with nature this was all she had to say:

"If I did put myself in there, what use would it be? That beast would get a hold of Arabella then. But it'd be nice never to know what they said when they found out everything. What's more, I'd rather be in there, after this, than in any town. After this!"

She gave that mob of chattering parrots a very affectionate glance; also the dark green leaves with the dark blue sky behind them; also the brown, still river, hidden away from the sun. She had come to love them all, and the river would be a very good place for her indeed.

She muttered on: "Then to think of John William! Well, I never! It would be best for him too if I snuffed out, one way or another; and as for 'Bella, if that brute doesn't turn up soon, he may not turn up at all. But he said he'd keep me waiting. He's low enough down to do it, too."

She looked behind her shuddering, as she had looked behind her many and many a time during the last few days. Instantly her eyes fell upon that at which one has a right to shudder. Within six feet of Missy a brown snake had stiffened itself from the ground with darting tongue and eyes like holes in a head full of fire. And Missy began to smile and hold out her hands to it.

"Come on," she said. "Come on and do your worst! I wish you would. That'd be a way out without no blame to anybody—and just now they might be sorry. Come on, or I'll come to you. Ah, you wretch, you blooming coward, you!"

She had got to her knees, and was actually making for the snake on all fours; but it darted back into its hole like a streak of live seaweed; and Missy then rose wearily to her feet, and stood looking around her once more, as though for the last time.

"What am I to do?" she asked of river, trees, and sky. "What am I to do? I haven't the pluck to finish myself, nor yet to make a clean breast. I haven't any pluck at all. I might go back and do something that'd make the whole kit of 'em glad to get rid o' me. That's what I call a gaudy idea, but it would mean clearing out in a hurry. And I don't want to clear out—not yet. Not just yet! So I'll slope back and see what's happening and how things are panning out; and I'll go on sitting tight as long as I'm let."