“And, I suppose,” continued Tom, in a very grumbling tone, “as you haven’t made your début in Melbourne, you’ll come out at home; be presented at Court, perhaps.”
“No, we don’t go to Court,” I replied, with a complacent sense of dignity and grandeur, as that mythical officer, with whom we are all acquainted, might have remarked of his regiment that they didn’t dance. “Grandmamma was the last of the family who was presented. But I dare say I shall see a great deal of company in my aunts’ houses.”
“I expect you will. I know what your aunt Alice’s house is, for I was there when Regy came of age. Don’t you have anything to do with Regy, Kitty; he is not a nice fellow.”
“Isn’t he? I’ve always heard he was very nice.”
“No, he isn’t. A good many fellows aren’t, in the set he belongs to. Do you know, Kitty, I’ve a good mind to sell out too, and come home to help look after you. You’ve got no brothers.”
“I’m sure you’re very kind,” I retorted, a little nettled by his disparagement of my relations; “but I have a father and mother, and they have managed to take care of me pretty well so far. Besides, how can you sell out? You have nothing to sell.”
“I beg your pardon. Since I came to man’s estate the governor has made me his partner. Half Booloomooroo belongs to me.”
“But you couldn’t leave the poor old man, and your mother. You don’t know how she pined and moped all the time you were at Oxford.”
“Poor old mother! no, of course not. I must just grin and bear it, Kitty. I must trust you not to forget your old friends when you are amongst so many new ones.”
“You may,” I said earnestly, touched by something in his voice, and recovering from my little huff in a moment. “I shall never forget my old friends, wherever I am. If I never see you again, Tom, nobody in all the world”—here I stopped, overwhelmed with horror at what I was going to say.