It wasn't love at first sight; that might have been a little off-centre, a little weird, creepy maybe. But there was a bond, a realisation by both of us that I was her rescuer and she had met the man who would give her the home she deserved. Althoughnot totally in the first flush of youth, her lean, athletic figure and obvious breeding fired my attraction to her. It was mutual. Resting demurely in her shady sylvan grove, she showed few outward signs of a long life of hard, unremitting toil, of fighting a war, of working to develop our great country, or of working her fair share in a bush sawmill, and seeing off many a sawmill worker made of weaker stuff. She worked at her task until the mill closed, then stayed on, a silent observer of a lonely bush mill being absorbed by nature. Then I arrived with my call to action, and she responded with calm dignity; and as has been her habit since her first day on earth, with quiet power and utter dependability.
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