"I am filled with amazement and respect, Miss Denis; you are the only person I have ever come across who admitted that they were now, in the actual present, absolutely contented, and had no unsatisfied cravings. But perhaps yours is a contented mind?"
"No, I have not been contented elsewhere; but here it is different; here I have my home, and papa——"
She hesitated, and her listener mentally added—"And Jim Quentin!"
"And I think perpetually fine weather, and beautiful surroundings, and liberty, go a long way towards making one feel as I do. Every morning when I wake, I have an impression that something delightful is going to happen during the day."
"Jim's visit of course," thought her companion. A sure sign that she is in love, but he merely said aloud,—
"It's well you mentioned liberty, for I fancy that scenery and sunshine go a short way with those beggars," pointing to a group of brown convicts, who were now wending silently down the road. "Do you not find everything very different out here to what it is at home?"
"Yes; but I had no home, I was always at school. Papa and I have so few belongings—but I am quite forgetting all this time that I have not offered you a cup of tea."
Mr. Lisle watched her as she busied herself among the spoons and saucers, and thought what a nice child she was, and what a shame it would be to let Jim Quentin break her heart!
"You see a good deal of Quentin," he remarked rather suddenly; but her colour did not rise as she handed him his tea, nor did the cup rattle in the saucer at the mention of that potent name. She met Mr. Lisle's keen interrogative glance with the utmost composure. How different he seemed without his hat, and how strange it was that it had never occurred to any one to mention that Mr. Lisle was handsome! The circumstance came home to her quite unexpected, as she now noticed his well-shaped head and profile; true his skin was tanned brown by the sun, his hair was touched with grey upon the temples, but in her heart she there and then discovered that he had a far more striking face than irresistible "Apollo" Quentin.
"I am taking this to papa," she said, rising; "he sits in the verandah, you see."