"Not going at all!" repeated Susan in a voice of stern amazement, stopping short in her preparations for our dressing and staring at me.
"She says it is too early to go, and she will not hurry herself," I replied.
"Not hurry herself! that's a pretty way of talking, and it's her uncle and aunt as wants her!" and Susan hastened from the room and down stairs, saying, as she went, "I'll just give her a bit of my mind, that's what I'll do."
Now, in what that bit of mind consisted I did not know exactly, though I pretty well guessed. Its administration proved much more speedily efficacious, however, than the bits of mind which aunt and I had bestowed upon Miss Lotty, for in a wonderfully short space of time up she came, with a rather depressed head and considerably subdued look, albeit a half-rebellious expression still lurked in her eyes and round the corners of her handsome mouth. Close behind followed Susan Bridget with very much the air of a schoolmaster bringing back some runaway scholar, her tall, bony figure more than usually straight, stiff and determined. To have seen her at that moment any one would have thought her one of the most relentless tyrants in the world. Poor, dear, soft-hearted Susan!
There was but brief while for dressing, and no time was now lost on superfluous words. Susan, without waiting to extract the half-sulky, reluctant replies from Charlotte as to whether she did or did not approve certain articles of dress, unhesitatingly selected such as she herself chose for the occasion, and without ceremony put them upon Lotty, hastening her movements and utterly disregarding her pettish complaints and discontented looks. So it was, therefore, that when the carriage came to the door, and uncle and aunt were ready, to my great joy Charlotte was ready too—ready in fact a few minutes before myself, I not having had the advantage of Susan's assistance. Just lingering a moment as Lotty left the room to press a warm kiss of farewell and glad thanks for her successful management of the former on good old Susan's hard cheek, I sped down stairs after my sister, and we were soon on our way to Rathfelder's Hotel.
CHAPTER IV.
Were not places of pleasurable and healthful resort so few in the neighbourhood of Cape Town, its inhabitants would certainly not attach the degree of importance they do to visiting a spot so barren of attraction to the majority as is the country whereon stands Rathfelder's Hotel. A long, low, widespreading building, or rather cluster of buildings, it lies beside the road leading from Cape Town to Cork Bay, and nearly at equal distance—about seven miles—from both places. Excepting a scattering of small native cottages, no other habitation is within sight, and the country, bounded on the north-west by the seemingly interminable range of the Table Mountains, spreads away in other directions, far, far beyond sight, one unbroken flat. Indeed, "The Flats" is the name given to these parts by the natives. To the lover of flowers and of this kind of wild, independent solitude peculiar to the Flats, the gratification is boundless. The soil, a mixture of white sand and turf, is highly favourable to the growth of an immense variety of heaths and other flowering shrubs, which with ever-charming successions carpet the ground with their myriads of blossoms throughout the great part of the year. Heaths of the richest hues and luxuriance—scarlet, orange, pink and other colours—predominate.
It would seem that only by comparison is the value, the real pleasure or importance of anything known; even the degrees of pain and sorrow are learned but by contrast with the greater or lesser afflictions which have preceded them; and thus it was that a week or fortnight's stay at Rathfelder's or but a day's excursion to these flowery and cool regions—cooler and fresher by ten degrees than in or near the town—came to be regarded as one if not the principal delight of the hot summer-time to the inhabitants of Cape Town—especially to those who, like our dear uncle, were obliged by reason of their engagements to spend a great portion of every day in the scorching city. He was one of the managers of the great Colonial bank there.