We found Mrs. Perkins reclining on a couch on the front verandah, a very gaily coloured dust-rug covering the lower part of her figure. Like many people in Australia she could hardly be classified socially; or, perhaps, I should say she did not possess in any marked form the characteristics which in England are associated with this or that social grade. If there was nothing of the aristocrat about her, it might be said that she was not in the least typically 'middle-class'; and I am sure the severest critic would have hesitated to say that hers were the manners, disposition, or outlook of any 'lower' class. Yet she had married an itinerant cobbler, or at best a 'pedestrialatory specialist,' and, I am sure, without the smallest sense of taking a derogatory step. Mrs. Perkins was the more a revelation to me perhaps, because, as it happened, Mrs. Gabbitas had said nothing whatever about her. I learned presently that she had not stood upon her feet for more than ten years. I was never told the exact nature of the disease from which she suffered, but I know she had lost permanently the use of her legs, and that she was not allowed to sit up in a chair for more than an hour at a time. She never moved anywhere without her husband. He carried her from one room to another, and at times to different parts of the garden; always very skilfully, and without the slightest appearance of exertion. I think it likely she did not weigh more than six or seven stone. Whenever I saw her carried, there was always draped about her a gaily coloured rug or large shawl; and she was for ever smiling, or actually laughing, or making some quaintly humorous little remark. I wondered sometimes if she had borrowed her playfulness in speech from her husband, or if he had borrowed from her. I do not think I ever met a happier pair. 'So here you are!' she said, as we drew near. Her tone suggested that my coming were the arrival of a very welcome and long-looked-for guest. 'You see, Nick, I am so lazy that I never go to any one; and people are so kind that every one comes to me, sooner or later.' I experienced a desire to do something graceful and chivalrous, and did nothing, I suspect, but grin awkwardly and shuffle my toes in the dust. It seemed to me clumsy and rude to stand erect before this crippled little lady, yet impossible to adopt any other attitude. Mr. Perkins had subsided, softly as a down cushion, on the edge of the verandah. But he had no angles, and I had no curves. Mr. Perkins removed his hat and caressingly polished that glistening orb, his head, with a large rainbow-hued handkerchief. 'You see, Insect,' he said, beaming upon his wife, 'this young feller, Nickperry, an orphantual lad, as I explained, has taken a fancy to Dursley.' 'And you've taken a fancy to Nickperry, I suppose--as you call him.'