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Four houses on the ridge line on a bank next to a river with bush clad hills in the background

Photo by A. L.

Chapter X.


THE WANGANUI RIVER.

The clouds were like white incense, blown
From golden altars reared on high;
A silence Earth had never known
Seemed falling, falling, from the sky.”

“Anything,” cried Mrs Greendays in an agonised voice, “anything would be better than to be cooped up in this—this fowl-house any longer!”

“My dear!” expostulated her husband.

“I can’t help it!” she retorted, almost in tears. “I did not have ten minutes’ sleep last night, and my head aches with the stuffiness of that hole they put us into! What a country! Fancy being able to get no better accommodation than this in a town,—the terminus of a railway,—and a town where they say that it is always raining! I would never have left home had I known that I should have to put up with such discomfort!”

“My dear!” exclaimed Captain Greendays once more. “Do consider, Hilda! We have been travelling for nearly three weeks in almost perfect weather, finding comfortable hotels everywhere, and the very first time things go wrong———

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