“Bah!” replied her husband, with a good-natured laugh; “not he. Arthur’s made of tougher stuff than that. And,” he added, “you women think of nothing but match-making.”
“But I tell you he has,” persisted she, ignoring the latter insinuation. “Now look here. For the last fortnight he has been a changed man. I can see it, if you can’t. Why, he hardly speaks to any one else when Lilian is there. Every moment that he is not at work he is in the house, or in the garden, or wherever she is. For some days he has been looking pale and worn, and no wonder, for he doesn’t eat enough to support life in a child of three years old. And he has become, for him, quite captious and irritable. Now,” she concluded, triumphantly, “do you mean to tell me all this is only my imagination?”
“Well, perhaps you are right,” answered the old settler, reflectively. “But somehow I’ve almost thought, of late, he was rather fond of Ethel.”
“That’s because you’re not a woman,” rejoined his wife. “Now I never thought so. And I’ve noticed what I’ve been telling you ever since the night of the dance, that is, ever since the day after Lilian’s arrival. You’ll see I’m right.”
“Not sure I don’t hope you are. It would be a good thing for both of them. She’s one of the sweetest girls I ever saw, as well as the prettiest. And to be thrown upon the world like that, gaining her livelihood by hammering a lot of dirty, uproarious brats into shape—it’s abominable; and if it is as you say I heartily congratulate Arthur.”
Mrs Brathwaite laughed rather dubiously. “Not so fast,” she said, “I’m by no means sure that Arthur will find it all plain sailing. Mark my words, that girl has a history, and she isn’t to be won by any chance comer. Ah, well; we shall see.”
Meanwhile the objects of their discussion are wandering on beneath the orange trees, even as they had done barely a fortnight ago for the first time.
“You are highly entertaining, I must say,” remarked Lilian, amusedly, when they had strolled some hundred yards further in absolute silence. “I suppose I ought to offer you the regulation penny.”
“You must make a much higher bid, then. I was thinking of what you have just been singing.”