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Turner, Ethel Sybil, 1872-1958

"Seven Little Australians"


Nellie and she went to church the first Sunday after their return.
Aldith was a few pews away, light-souled as ever, dressed in gay
attire, flashing smiling, coquettish glances across to the Courtneys'
pew, and the Grahams sitting just behind.
How far away Meg had grown from her! It seemed years since she
had been engrossed with the latest mode in hat trimming, the dip
of "umbrella" skirts, and the best method of making the hands
white. Years since she had tried a trembling 'prentice hand at
flirtations. Years, almost, since she had given the little blue
ribbon at Yarrahappini, that was doing more good than she
dreamed of.
Alan looked at her from his pew--the little figure in its sorrowful
black, the shining hair hanging in a plait no longer frizzed at the
end, the chastened droop of the young lips, the wistful sadness
of the blue eyes. He could hardly realize it was the little
scatterbrain girl who had written that letter, and stolen away
through the darkness to meet his graceless young brother.
He clasped her hand when church was over; his grey eyes, with the
quick moisture in them, made up for the clumsy stumbling words of
sympathy he tried to speak.


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