I think I see and hear it all now.

The moving white patches on the hill-side, the incessant calling and answering, the racing and chasing among the curly little merino lambs, and above all the fair earth the clear vault of an almost cloudless sky bent itself in a deep blue dome.

Just over the eastern hills the first long lances of the sun lay in bright shafts of silver sheen on the dew-laden tussocks, and that peculiar morning fragrance rose up from the moist ground, which is as much the reward of the early riser as the early worm is of the bird.
Was it a morning for low spirits or sobs and sighs?
Surely not; and yet as I turned the handle of the kitchen door those melancholy sounds struck my ear.

I had intended to make my entrance with a propitiatory smile, suitable to such a glorious morning, proceed to pay my damsels a graceful compliment on their somewhat unusual early rising, and wind up with a request for a cup of tea.

But all these friendly purposes went out of my head when I beheld Euphemia seated on the rude wooden settle, with its chopped tussock mattrass, which had been covered with a bright cotton damask, and was now called respectfully, "the kitchen sofa." Her arm was round Lois's waist, and she had drawn that young lady's shock head of red curls down on her capacious bosom.