Often the light grows dull and the bright colouring fades to neutral tints in the dust and heat of the day. There is a lurking sparkle of joyousness and rebellion and mischief in nature here, and therefore in children. It may be that the land and the people are young-hearted together, and the children's spirits not crushed and saddened by the shadow of long years' sorrowful history. It may be that the miasmas of naughtiness develop best in the sunny brilliancy of our atmosphere. In England, and America, and Africa, and Asia, the little folks may be paragons of virtue, I know little about them.īut in Australia a model child is-I say it not without thankfulness-an unknown quantity. Not one of the seven is really good, for the very excellent reason that Australian children never are. If you imagine you are going to read of model children, with perhaps a naughtily inclined one to point a moral, you had better lay down the book immediately and betake yourself to Sandford and Merton or similar standard juvenile works. B efore you fairly start this story I should like to give you just a word of warning.
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