I thought I would give the verse to the bereaved mother, and so watched for her the following evening to come to the graves. She had only arrived at the "Laura" the day before from the South, where she had been for a change to Herberton, after the stinging heat of the Summer. Now Herberton has an annual "show," which is the event of Northern Queenstown and supplies topics of conversation to the common folk for a year, until it comes around again.
This year Mrs. Donald was looked up to as a wonderful person, for she had been there. The Duke and Duchess of York's visit paled before the home-coming of Mrs. Donald at the "Laura."
The sun dipped in the West, throwing a red glow over the land, but the shadows were all cast from the East, where the stronger light of a great big full moon rose slowly and majestically shining through the crooked-bowed ironbark trees, standing out like cut patterns in cardboard, all painted black. The silver light made the earth mystical, and the air was full of the loud far-off sounding shrillness of myriad insects, that the coming night or sinking sun had wakened. A solitary chirrup-chirrup close to my tent—the soft call of a dove to its mate from the trees in full bloom, whose delicate scent came to me on the gently-moving soft night air—the screech a long way off of a cockatoo—and the distance deadened tinkle of the bells of hobbled horses, were all the sounds to be heard until presently through the long grey grass came the z-z-z-rup—z-z-z-rup of a woman's dress.
I looked towards the sound and saw a figure advancing to the little graves. The moment seemed sacred; it was the unhappy mother; and I took the pipe from my lips and muttered with reverence, "Fidelium animoe defanctis; per misercordiam Dei requiescat in pace."
I felt a little choking in my throat; and the tears came up in my eyes while I watched the lonely figure
