The Perversity of Human Nature

Amongst the hundreds and thousands of pretty and cosy little villa houses that cluster round our Melbourne city, The Nest, at St. Kilda is one that seldom escapes the notice of the passer-by. It stands a little back from the street, at the top of a sloping lawn, a one storied, broad verandahed, rose embowered bungalow-- as charming a nest as you would wish to see. Jupiter Pluvius twirls upon the velvet grass and the gorgeous flower borders, making a delicate liquid tinkle and patter with its spreading showers. The gravel path, sweeping in the form of a horse shoe from the front gate, has never a weed on its smooth face. The shrubs are glossy and bushy; the fern trees thrive as in their native forests; the dark pines that line the enclosure and guard the little dwelling and its exquisite garden from wind and dust and prying eyes are dense and shapely, without a ragged branch anywhere. And the house itself, retiring under its spreading eaves, is simply perfection in the finish of its simple appointments and the almost glittering cleanliness of every part of it.

The inside matches the outside. Persian carpets on the dark floors; Liberty stuffs at the windows; Morris chintzes on the chairs and sofas; good, though not rare, pictures on the walls, which are tinted on purpose to suit them; low book cases running like dados round the rooms, filled with books to read and not to look at, and bearing on the top shelf dainty bric-a-brac, of which every piece has been selected on its own merits, and not at the command of a vulgar fashion. A thoroughly refined and harmonious house, in short; such a house as could only belong to cultivated and enlightened people.

Three years ago-- and it was then very much as it is now-- these people were newly settled in it.

They were two only-- a young Australian husband and his English wife, to whom he had been married about eighteen months. He had met her at the Grosvenor Gallery, a bright girl fresh from Girton, when he was himself enjoying a six months' trip to Europe. He was then, as now, partner in a flourishing firm of stock and station agents having offices in Collins-street west-- Brown, Brown and Ponsonby. He was the second Brown-- Brown the younger; the old one was his uncle. Until the memorable occasion when he met his wife, he had never travelled beyond the bounds of his native continent; and he went to England with the conviction that he knew as much as the old country could teach him and a little more-- except on one point. He was prepared to own, and subsequently did own, that England could furnish more and better pictures than all he had seen in Australia. It was his one artistic taste. Goodness knows how he came by it, but there it was. From a child he had been fond of drawing and fond of pictures-- of which, naturally, he considered himself a connoisseur-- after his return from Europe, an infallible judge.