wants to keep to himself that ain't his business," he said.
And we understood this remark to be intended for our benefit,

and to indicate a course of action upon which the Oracle had decided,
with respect to this case, and which we, in his opinion,

should do well to follow.
Alf got away a week or so later, and we all took a holiday

and went down to Fremantle to see him off. Perhaps he wondered
why Mitchell gripped his hand so hard and wished him luck so earnestly,

and was surprised when he gave him three cheers.
"Ah, well!" remarked Mitchell, as we turned up the wharf.

"I've heerd of such cases before," said the Oracle, meditatively.
"They ain't common, but I've hear'd of such cases before."

A Daughter of Maoriland
A sketch of poor-class Maoris

The new native-school teacher, who was "green", "soft", and poetical,
and had a literaryambition, called her "August", and fondly hoped

to build a romance on her character. She was down in the school registers
as Sarah Moses, Maori, 16 years and three months. She looked twenty;

but this was nothing, insomuch as the mother of the youngest child
in the school -- a dear little half-caste lady of two or three summers --

had not herself the vaguest idea of the child's age, nor anybody else's,
nor of ages in the abstract. The church register was lost

some six years before, when "Granny", who was a hundred, if a day,
was supposed to be about twenty-five. The teacher had to guess the ages

of all the new pupils.
August was apparently the oldest in the school -- a big, ungainly,

awkward girl, with a heavy negro type of Maori countenance,
and about as much animation, mentally or physically, as a cow.

She was given to brooding; in fact, she brooded all the time.
She brooded all day over her school work, but did it fairly well.

How the previous teachers had taught her all she knew was a mystery
to the new one. There had been a tragedy in August's family

when she was a child, and the affair seemed to have cast a gloom
over the lives of the entire family, for the lowering brooding cloud

was on all their faces. August would take to the bush when things went wrong
at home, and climb a tree and brood till she was found and coaxed home.

Things, according to pa gossip, had gone wrong with her
from the date of the tragedy, when she, a bright little girl,

was taken -- a homelessorphan -- to live with a sister,
and, afterwards, with an aunt-by-marriage. They treated her, 'twas said,

with a brutality which must have been greatly exaggerated by pa-gossip,
seeing that unkindness of this description is, according to all

the best authorities, altogether foreign to Maori nature.
Pa-gossip -- which is less reliable than the ordinary washerwoman kind,

because of a deeper and more viciousignorance -- had it
that one time when August was punished by a teacher (or beaten

by her sister or aunt-by-marriage) she "took to the bush" for three days,
at the expiration of which time she was found on the ground

in an exhausted condition. She was evidently a true Maori or savage,
and this was one of the reasons why the teacher with the literaryambition

took an interest in her. She had a print of a portrait of a man
in soldier's uniform, taken from a copy of the `Illustrated London News',

pasted over the fireplace in the whare where she lived,
and neatly bordered by vandyked strips of silvered tea-paper.

She had pasted it in the place of honour, or as near as she could get to it.
The place of honour was sacred to framed representations

of the Nativity and Catholic subjects, half-modelled, half-pictured.
The print was a portrait of the last Czar of Russia, of all the men

in the world; and August was reported to have said that she loved that man.
His father had been murdered, so had her mother. This was one of the reasons

why the teacher with the literaryambition thought he could get a romance
out of her.

After the first week she hung round the new mistress" target="_blank" title="n.女教师；女校长">schoolmistress, dog-like --
with "dog-like affection", thought the teacher. She came down often

during the holidays, and hung about the verandah and back door
for an hour or so; then, by-and-bye, she'd be gone. Her brooding

seemed less aggressive on such occasions. The teacher reckoned that
she had something on her mind, and wanted to open her heart to "the wife",

but was too ignorant or too shy, poor girl; and he reckoned,
from his theory of Maori character, that it might take her weeks, or months,

to come to the point. One day, after a great deal of encouragement,
she explained that she felt "so awfullylonely, Mrs. Lorrens."

All the other girls were away, and she wished it was school-time.
She was happy and cheerful again, in her brooding way, in the playground.

There was something sadly ludicrous about her great, ungainly figure
slopping round above the children at play. The mistress" target="_blank" title="n.女教师；女校长">schoolmistress took her

into the parlour, gave her tea and cake, and was kind to her;
and she took it all with broody cheerfulness.

One Sunday morning she came down to the cottage and sat
on the edge of the verandah, looking as wretchedly miserable as a girl could.

She was in rags -- at least, she had a rag of a dress on --
and was barefooted and bareheaded. She said that her aunt had turned her out,

and she was going to walk down the coast to Whale Bay to her grandmother --
a long day's ride. The teacher was troubled, because he was undecided

what to do. He had to be careful to avoid any unpleasantness
arising out of Maori cliquism. As the teacher he couldn't let her go

in the state she was in; from the depths of his greenness he trusted her,
from the depths of his softness he pitied her; his poetic nature

was fiercelyindignant on account of the poor girl's wrongs,
and the wife spoke for her. Then he thought of his unwritten romance,

and regarded August in the light of copy, and that settled it. While he
talked the matter over with his wife, August "hid in the dark of her hair,"

awaiting her doom. The teacher put his hat on, walked up to the pa,
and saw her aunt. She denied that she had turned August out,

but the teacher believed the girl. He explained his position,
in words simplified for Maori comprehension, and the aunt and relations

said they understood, and that he was "perfectly right, Mr. Lorrens."
They were very respectful. The teacher said that if August

would not return home, he was willing to let her stay at the cottage
until such time as her uncle, who was absent, returned, and he (the teacher)

could talk the matter over with him. The relations thought
that that was the very best thing that could be done, and thanked him.

The aunt, two sisters, and as many of the others, including the children,
as were within sight or hail at the time -- most of them

could not by any possible means have had the slightest connection
with the business in hand -- accompanied the teacher to the cottage.

August took to the flax directly she caught sight of her relations,
and was with difficulty induced to return. There was a lot of talk in Maori,

during which the girl and her aunt shuffled and swung round
at the back of each other, and each talked over her shoulder,

and laughed foolishly and awkwardly" target="_blank" title="a.笨拙地；棘手地">awkwardly once or twice; but in the end
the girl was sullenly determined not to return home, so it was decided

that she should stay. The mistress" target="_blank" title="n.女教师；女校长">schoolmistress made tea.
August brightened from the first day. She was a different girl altogether.

"I never saw such a change in a girl," said the young mistress" target="_blank" title="n.女教师；女校长">schoolmistress,
and one or two others. "I always thought she was a good girl

if taken the right way; all she wanted was a change and kind treatment."
But the stolid old Maori chairman of the school committee

only shrugged his shoulders and said (when the mistress" target="_blank" title="n.女教师；女校长">schoolmistress,
woman-like, pressed him for an opinion to agree with her own),

"You can look at it two ways, Mrs. Lorrens." Which, by the way,
was about the only expression of opinion that the teacher was ever able

to get out of him on any subject.
August worked and behaved well. She was wonderfully quick in picking up

English ways and housework. True, she was awkward and not over cleanly
in some things, but her mistress had patience with her.

Who wouldn't have? She "couldn't do enough" for her benefactress;
she hung on her words and sat at her footstool of evenings

in a way that gladdened the teacher's sentimental nature;
she couldn't bear to see him help his wife with a hat-pin or button --