Won't you come in and have a cup of tay ?" "No, we must get on, thank you," and Hugh and Mary drove off, watched by the old lady and the lanky-legged, shock-headed youth--Peter himself--who came to the door of the big shed to stare at them.
As they drove off Hugh was silent, wondering what effect the sight of the selectors might have had on Miss Grant.
She seemed to read his thoughts, and after a little while she spoke.
"So those are Mr.Blake's poor relations, are they?
Well, that is not his fault.

My father was poor once, just as poor as those people are.
And Mr.Blake saved my life." Hugh felt that she was half-consciously putting him in the wrong for having more or less disapproved of Mr.Blake; so he kept silence.
As the team bore them along at a flying trot, they climbed higher and higher up the range; at last, as they rounded a shoulder of the hillside, the whole valley of Kiley's River lay beneath them, stretching away to the far blue foothills.

Beyond again was a great mountain, its top streaked with snow.

At their feet was a gorgeous scheme of colour, greens and greys of the grass, bright tints of willow and poplar, and the speckled forms of the cattle, so far down that they looked like pigmy stock feeding in fairy paddocks.

Across the valley there came now and again, softened by distance, the song of the river; and up in the river-bend, on a spur of the hills, were white walls rising from clustered greenery.
"How beautiful!" said the girl, half standing up in the waggonette, "and is that--" "That's Kuryong, Miss Grant.