It was afternoon when Aileen awoke—this time with light in her eyes and colour in her cheeks:—able to take the soup that ’Possum brought her, and to smile at Garth and Tom as they perched on her bed and entertained her with news of the estate, as Tom gravely called it.  There was always so much to tell of the estate each day; news of garden, or fowl-run, or pigsty; fresh flowers blossoming, a panel of fencing broken down by a cow with a thirst for exploring, or a raid after calves that had escaped through the gap and distributed themselves up the most scrub-grown gully they could find.  To-day the pigs had taken advantage of Horrors having opened the gate of their sty and then fallen to dreaming; with the result that Garth and his father had had a long hunt, and were considerably heated.