It was even as the old gentleman had said. He had held an Army commission in his younger days, and he and Hazel’s father had been subalterns together. But the latter, tired of waiting for his step, had exchanged into a regiment ordered to the Cape on active service, and at the close of hostilities had sold out, married, and settled down as a colonist, and a very fairly successful one he became. All this had come out in the course of Dick’s engagement, and Sir Anson, delighted at the prospect of once more foregathering with his former comrade-in-arms, had concluded to take a run out and look into matters himself. His welcome had been all that he could have desired, and Hazel won the old man’s heart—even as she had won that of his son—on sight. Thus everything ran on oiled wheels, culminating in a big wedding at the nearest district town, at which nothing would satisfy Dick but that Harley Greenoak should officiate as his best man. And the latter, ruefully comic over the incongruity of the rôle in his case, was obliged to comply.
“Hallo, dad!” now sang out Dick, as they all met at the rendezvous. “Has Greenoak been ‘wiping your eye,’ or is it t’other way on?”
“No, certainly not the other way on, Dick,” was the answer. “Greenoak’s a record. But—hasn’t Hazel come yet?”
“N-no. Wait though—oh—yes. There she is. I hear wheels.”
A minute later and a neat dog-cart drove up, halting at a gate on the further side of the field. Hazel had alighted before Dick could get there, and as the pair returned together, laughing and talking, the two older men watched them, each with his own particular form of satisfaction at his heart.
“What a couple they make,” said Greenoak, more to himself than to the other. But it was overheard and heartily seconded.
Hazel was looking lovely in her fresh, plain, summer costume, which set off her dark, piquante beauty to perfection.
“Good sport?” she cried merrily. “Ah, yes, rather,” as her eyes fell upon the rows of “little brown birds” laid out upon the grass with a few hares and a rabbit or two. Then, still laughing and talking, she set to work, aided by Dick, to extract and lay out the contents of the hampers, and soon there was popping of champagne corks, and the glasses creamed with their fizzing contents, and all fell to with a good appetite.
“There’s something very restful about this English scenery,” remarked Greenoak, gazing dreamily out over the rich meadowland and soft, towering foliage, to where, away in the distance, the gables and chimneys of the Hall were irregularly glimpsed.