“No, on the South Coast--dairy-farming. No, my father was a surveyor, so was his father before him. Both in New South Wales. Then he gave it up and started this farm down south. Oh yes, I liked it--I love home. I love going down home. I’ve got a cottage down there that father gave me when I got married. You must come down with us some time when the people that are in it go. It’s right on the sea. Do you think you and Mrs Somers would like it?” “I’m sure we should.” “And will you come with us for a week-end? The people in it are leaving next week. We let it furnished.” “We should like to very much indeed,” said Somers, being polite over it because he felt a little unsure still, whether he wanted to be so intimate. But Victoria seemed so wistful. “We feel so ourselves with you and Mrs Somers,” said Victoria. “And yet you’re so different from us, and yet we feel so much ourselves with you.” “But we’re not different,” he protested. “Yes, you are--coming from home. It’s mother who always called England home. She was English. She always spoke so prettily. She came from Somerset. Yes, she died about five years ago. Then I was mother of the family. Yes, I am the eldest, except Alfred. Yes, they’re all at home. Alfred is a mining engineer--there are coal mines down the South Coast. He was with Jack in the war, on the same job. Jack was a Captain and Alfred was a Lieutenant. But they drop all the army names now. That’s how I came to know Jack: through Alfred. Jack always calls him Fred.” “You didn’t know him before the war?” “No, not till he came home. Alfred used to talk about him in his letters, but I never thought then I should marry him. They are great friends yet, the two of them.” The rain that she had prophesied now began to fall--big straight drops, that resounded on the tin roofs of the houses. “Won’t you come in and sit with us till Jack comes?” asked Somers. “You’ll feel dreary, I know.” “Oh, don’t think I said it for that,” said Victoria. “Come round, though,” said Somers. And they both ran indoors out of the rain. Lightning had started to stab in the south-western sky, and clouds were shoving slowly up. Victoria came round and sat talking, telling of her home on the south coast. It was only about fifty miles from Sydney, but it seemed another world to her. She was so quiet and simple, now, that both the Somers felt drawn to her, and glad that she was sitting with them. They were talking still of Europe, Italy, Switzerland, England, Paris--the wonderworld to Victoria, who had never been out of New South Wales in her life, in spite of her name--which name her father had given her to annoy all his neighbours, because he said the State of Victoria was run like a paradise compared to New South Wales--although he too never went a yard out of his home state, if he could help it; they were talking still of Europe when they heard Jack’s voice calling from the opposite yard.