a day his country allowed him—plus another shilling or two his daughter's deft needle won.
"Too clever by half." "Talks more nor he thinks." "Showy, but won't wash!" were the epithets with which his comrades summed up valiant John Elms. He knew something of everything—building, farming, and scheming—was a "bush lawyer," spoke much of "Political Economy," and the "Rights of Man." The anarchists he denounced, and claimed himself to be a Christian Socialist. A son of Erin, he could talk by the hour, like most of his countrymen, with that facility that comes of iteration of the same truths, with varied thumpings of table or tub to drive each platitude home.
The little house in Richmond, thanks to Gwyneth's skill and care, was a model poor man's home. The Sergeant, as Elms liked to be called, was apt at domestic carpentery, as his daughter was with respect to plain upholstery. The parlour, where the Sergeant's meal was laid—he came in at all hours from "meetings"—boasted a small cabinet-organ, a sewing-machine, and a faded drawing-room suite, rendered ever fresh and clean by immaculate holland coverings with red pipings. Rural and military pictures, from the illustrated papers, framed in wood or leather work by father and daughter, decked the walls.
"If there was a prize for the cosiest little home," Dick Malduke, Gwyneth's secret admirer, used to say, "you'd get it, and 'honorary' mention into the bargain."
"I'm full of a new scheme," remarked the father as he drank his tea.
"That's nothing wonderful," responded the undemonstrative daughter, "since you propound (isn't that what you call it?) a fresh theory every day."
"Oh, but I have some one behind me, I feel, now.
