"No matter for a family party," said Tom. "We are not going in for style this time. The boy in his armchair and pillows will take the room of two."
"Still, we may as well make it an even eight," I urged. "Otherwise the table will look lopsided, and one or other of the girls will have nobody to talk to."
"They will be quite satisfied to have their brother to look at. No, no, Polly, don't let us make a company affair of it, for goodness' sake. Harry wouldn't like it, or be fit for it either."
"And isn't Juke company?"
"By Heavens, no! We owe it to that young fellow that our only son isn't in his grave—yes, Polly, I am convinced of it—and my house is his, and all that's in it. Besides, he'll be here professionally—to see that Harry doesn't overeat himself. Oh, Juke is quite another pair of shoes."
I certainly did not see it. He had served us well, no doubt, and we had paid him well; each side had done its part in a generous and conscientious spirit. I considered he had no more claim on us now than the thousands of passengers Tom had carried when he was a sea captain had on him. I am sure no doctor in the world can match a ship's commander of the most common type for self-denying devotion to the cause of duty. But, seeing Tom so inclined to be cross and unreasonable, I thought it better to say no more. We returned to the sty to select the piglet that was to be killed, and in my own mind I selected the guest who should make the table symmetrical. I knew that Harry would only rejoice to see another friend, and it was due to Phyllis to provide her as well as the others with a companion. It was also an opportunity which I did not feel it right to miss for serving her interests in other ways.
I am not one of those vulgar match-makers who are the laughing-stock of the young men, and properly so—quite the contrary, indeed: no one can accuse me of scheming to get my daughters married. Still, they must be married some day—or should be, in the order of nature—and surely to goodness a mother is permitted to safeguard, to some extent, a thoughtless and ignorant girl against the greatest of all the perils that her inexperience of life can expose her to. Not for the world would I force her inclination in any way, but there is a difference between doing that and letting her make a fool of herself with the first casual puppy in coat and trousers that crosses her path. The duty of parents is to protect their adolescent children from themselves, as it were, in this incalculably important matter; that is to say, to keep their path clear of acquaintanceships from which undesirable complications might result, while encouraging innocent friendships that may develop with impunity. Otherwise, what's the use of being parents at all? Your children might as well be orphans, and better. I neglected this duty, certainly, when I allowed Harry and Emily Blount to have access to each other; but then a son is not like a daughter—you can't be always overlooking him—and that affair was a lesson to me. I determined to be more vigilant in Phyllis's case.
Phyllis is not like other girls. I think I may say, without a particle of vanity, that she is the very prettiest in Australia, at the least. There may be greater beauties at home—I don't know, it is so long since I was there; but if there be, I should like to see them. Her features are not classical, of course, and that dear little piquant suggestion of a cast in the left eye is a peculiarity, though it is not a defect, any more than are the freckles she gets in summer: these trifles of detail merely go to make the tout-ensemble what it is—so charming that she has but to enter a room to eclipse every other woman in it. This being so, I was naturally anxious that she should marry, when she did marry, into her proper sphere, and not be thrown away upon a man unworthy of her. And I only took the most simple and necessary precaution for her safety when I limited my invitations to young fellows whom I could trust—like Spencer Gale.
Tom says I never had a good word for Spencer Gale until he made his fortune in Broken Hills. It amuses Tom to make these reckless statements, and it doesn't hurt me in the least. I always liked the boy, but any fair-minded person must have acknowledged that his change of circumstances had improved him—brushed him up, and brightened him in every way. It was not his wealth that induced me to throw him into my daughter's company, but his sterling personal qualities. A better son never walked, excepting my own dear Harry—that alone was enough for me; a good son never fails to make a good husband, as everybody knows.
His sister was a friend and neighbour of mine, and I knew that he was staying with her. At one time all the family had lived here, Mr. Gale having Tom's fancy for amateur farming and market-gardening in his leisure hours. Spencer and Harry, both being clerks in Melbourne offices, used to go into town together of a morning; that was how we came to know them. But when Spencer had some shares given him which went to a ridiculous price directly afterwards, and when his money, by all sorts of lucky chances, bred money at such a rate that he was worth (they said) a quarter of a million in a twelvemonth, then they all left this out-of-the-way suburb for a big place in Toorak—all except Mary Gale, who married a poor clergyman before the boom. Mary's husband, Mr. Welshman, was the incumbent of our parish, and her good brother was not at all too grand to pay her visits at intervals, besides helping her to educate the children. Which proved conclusively that prosperity had not spoiled him.