A bird of passage

by B. M. Croker

"You are Helen?" he said in answer to her glance.

"Oh, father," she exclaimed tremulously, now putting down the bag and stretching out her hands, "how glad I am that you are you!—it sounds nonsense, I know, but I was half afraid that I had forgotten your face. You know," apologetically, "I was such a very little thing, and that man over there, with the hooked nose, stared at me so hard, that I thought for a moment—I was half afraid—" and she paused and laughed a little hysterically, and looked at her father with eyes full of tears, and he rather shyly stooped down and touched her lips with his grizzly moustache—and the ice was broken.

Helen seemed to immediately recover her spirits, her colour, and her tongue—but no, she had never lost the use of that! She was a different-looking girl to what she had been ten minutes previously—her lips broke into smiles, her eyes danced; she was scarcely the same individual as the white-faced, frightened young lady whom we had first seen sitting aloof at the end of the saloon table.

"I remember you now quite well," said Miss Denis. "I knew your voice; and oh, I am so glad to come home again!"

This was delightful. Colonel Denis, a man of but few words at any time, was silent from sheer necessity now. He felt that he could not command his utterance as was befitting to his sex. If this meeting was rapturous to Helen, what was it not to him? Here was his own little girl grown into a big girl—this was all the difference.

In a short time Miss Denis and her luggage (Mrs. Creery would be pleased to know that there was a good deal of the latter) were being rowed to Ross by eight stout-armed boatmen, over a sea that reflected the bright full moon. It was almost as light as day, as Helen and her father walked along the pier and up the hill homewards. As they passed a bungalow on their left-hand, the figure of a girl (who had long been lying in wait in the shadow of the verandah) leant out as they went by and watched them stealthily; then, pushing open a door and hurrying into a lamp-lit room, she said to her mother, an enormously stout, helpless-looking woman,—

"She has come! She has a figure like a may-pole. I could not see her face plainly, but I don't believe she is anything to look at."

However, those who had already obtained a glimpse of Miss Denis in the saloon of the Scotia were of a very different opinion, and, according to them, the newly-arrived "spin" was an uncommonly pretty girl, likely to raise the average of ladies' looks in the settlement by about fifty per cent.!

Almost at the moment that Colonel Denis and his daughter were landing at Ross, another boat was putting her passengers ashore at Aberdeen, i.e. Mr. Quentin's very smart gig. A steep hill lay between him and his bungalow, but declining the elephant in waiting, he and Mr. Lisle, and another friend, to whom he had given a seat over, commenced to breast the rugged path together. This latter gentleman was a Dr. Parks, the principal medical officer in the settlement; a little man with a sharp face, grey whiskers and moustache, and keen eyes to match; he was comfortable of figure, and fluent of speech, and prided himself on having the army list of the Indian staff corps at his fingers' ends; he could tell other men's services to a week, knew to a day when Brown would drop in for his off-reckonings, and how much sick-leave Jones had had. More than this, he had an enormous circle of acquaintances in the three Presidencies, and if he did not know most old Indian residents personally, at any rate he could tell you all about them—who they married, when, and why; who were their friends, enemies, or relations; what were their prospects of promotion, their peculiarities, their favourite hill-stations; he was a sort of animated directory (with copious notes), and prided himself on knowing India as well as another man knew London. He was unmarried, well off, and lived in the East from choice, not necessity; he was exceedingly popular in society, was reputed to have saved two lacs of rupees, and to be looking out for a wife!

After climbing the hill for some time in silence, Dr. Parks paused—ostensibly to survey the scene, in reality to take breath.