If Major Buckley thought Alice beautiful as he had seen her in the
morning, he did not think her less so when she was seated on a
beautiful little horse, which she rode gracefully and courageously, in
a blue ridinghabit, and a sweet little grey hat with a plume of
companion's feathers hanging down on one side. The cockatoo was on the
door-step to see her start, and talked so incessantly in his
excitement, that even when the magpie assaulted him and pulled a
feather out of his tail, he could not be quiet. Sam's horse Widderin
capered with delight, and Sam's dog Rover coursed far and wide before
them, with joyful bark. So they three went off through the summer's day
as happy as though all life were one great summer's holiday, and there
were no storms below the horizon to rise and overwhelm them; through
the grassy flat, where the quail whirred before them, and dropped again
as if shot; across the low rolling forest land, where a million parrots
fled whistling to and fro, like jewels, in the sun; past the old
stockyard, past the sheep-wash hut, and then through forest which grew
each moment more dense and lofty, along the faint and narrow track which
led into one of the most abrupt and romantic gullies which pierce the
Australian Alps.
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