He laughed, and bent to look into her eyes. "Joan,
what is to happen when she _has_ to do without you altogether?"
"Oh, I suppose--she might manage as she used to do before we came." Joan
said this involuntarily; and then she understood. Her colour went up.
"I don't think _I_ can manage very much longer without you--my Joan!"
murmured Fred. "If you'll have me, darling."
And she only said, "Oh, Fred!"
But he understood.
[Sidenote: Here is a story of an out-of-the-way Christmas entertainment
got up for a girl's pleasure.]
A Christmas with Australian Blacks
BY
J. S. PONDER
"I say, Dora, can't we get up some special excitement for sister Maggie,
seeing she is to be here for Christmas? I fancy she will, in her home
inexperience, expect a rather jolly time spending Christmas in this
forsaken spot. I am afraid that my letters home, in which I coloured
things up a bit, are to blame for that," my husband added ruefully.
"What can we do, Jack?" I asked. "I can invite the Dunbars, the Connors
and the Sutherlands over for a dance, and you can arrange for a
kangaroo-hunt the following day. That is the usual thing when special
visitors come, isn't it?"
"Yes," he moodily replied, "that about exhausts our programme. Nothing
very exciting in that. I say, how would it do to take the fangs out of a
couple of black snakes and put them in her bedroom, so as to give her
the material of a thrilling adventure to narrate when she goes back to
England?"
"That would never do," I protested, "you might frighten her out of her
wits.
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