who wore tan shoes. Miria did not like her grandmother to go roaming at her own sweet will along the roads; she did not even like her to smoke; what she did like was to have her squatted safe at the whare door, holding on to little Hana, whose kicking really began to be painful, and looking out that little Himi did not get hold of the axe and chop himself to bits. She had left her like that half an hour ago; probably she imagined her to be still like that—submissive, stationed, and oh, how lacklustre, how dull! Well, Pipi might perhaps be a little porangi (crazy) at times, but she was never anything like so porangi as that. How lucky that Ropata’s wife was a trustworthy crony! How fortunate that the babies could neither of them speak! Pipi smiled, and showed her perfect teeth; she took out, from deep recesses of her raiment, her treasured pipe, and stuck it in her mouth. E! Ka pai te paipa!—a good thing, the pipe! There was no topeka (tobacco) in it, to be sure; but who could say whence topeka might not come, this golden afternoon? To those newly at liberty all the world belongs. And, like stolen waters, stolen sport is sweet. No urchin who, having safely conveyed himself away at last out of earshot of mother or teacher, bounds breathless to the beloved creek where “bullies” wait the hook, knows more of the mingled raptures of lawlessness and expectation than this old great-grandmother Pipi did, out upon the high-road, out upon the hunt!
Although it was midwinter, the afternoon was warm—there is never really cold weather upon that sheltered northern coast. The road ran right round the head of the league-long harbour, and showed a
