She was evidently a true Maori or savage,
and this was one of the reasons why the teacher with the literary ambition
took an interest in her. She had a print of a portrait of a man
in soldier's uniform, taken from a copy of the `Illustrated London News',
pasted over the fireplace in the whare where she lived,
and neatly bordered by vandyked strips of silvered tea-paper.
She had pasted it in the place of honour, or as near as she could get to it.
The place of honour was sacred to framed representations
of the Nativity and Catholic subjects, half-modelled, half-pictured.
The print was a portrait of the last Czar of Russia, of all the men
in the world; and August was reported to have said that she loved that man.
His father had been murdered, so had her mother. This was one of the reasons
why the teacher with the literary ambition thought he could get a romance
out of her.
After the first week she hung round the new schoolmistress, dog-like --
with "dog-like affection", thought the teacher. She came down often
during the holidays, and hung about the verandah and back door
for an hour or so; then, by-and-bye, she'd be gone. Her brooding
seemed less aggressive on such occasions. The teacher reckoned that
she had something on her mind, and wanted to open her heart to "the wife",
but was too ignorant or too shy, poor girl; and he reckoned,
from his theory of Maori character, that it might take her weeks, or months,
to come to the point.
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