One or two others turned up later, and Elsie went in and came out presently, followed by the Kanaka boy, with a tray and the tea things. Then Elsie requested Mr. Saunders, the young man in the Post Office, to cut some bread and butter, and there was some joking about the next cake-making day, and it transpired that on one occasion Elsie's admirers had been turned into amateur cooks, and had helped to bake a batch of biscuits. Certainly there was very little formality about Elsie's verandah receptions. The Kanaka boy in his gardening clothes stood gravely waiting to get hot water as required, and Elsie requested her guests to help themselves from the various bunches of bananas hanging from the verandah rafters. "Riverside is famous for its bananas," she said to Blake, "bananas and strawberry guavas, those are our attractions, not counting the chucky-chucky tree by the river. Will you come some time and help me to get chucky-chuckies?"
Mr. Holmes, one of Elsie's army of detrimentals, proposed a pull on the river before the weather got cold, and Elsie gravely made the appointment and accepted an invitation to meet somebody else on the North Side, and get an ice at the Leichardt's Town Gunter's. About sunset Mrs. Valliant appeared. She made Blake think of the descriptions he had read of the American mother. She was a personage equally unimportant in the general scheme of things.
CHAPTER XVI.
"TRANT'S WARNING."
Every one said that this was going to be one of the gayest winters there had ever been in Leichardt's Town. The Birthday Ball was heralded by several smaller entertainments. The Garfits gave an impromptu dance, to which they were compelled to invite Elsie, though before Ina's marriage she had not been asked to the Garfits' less formal
