Now, however, he looked pleased. “Well, yes; we’ve been brought up in it, you see, and shouldn’t be happy in any other. But I should have thought that you, coming out from England, would have found it rather slow. Perhaps you haven’t had time to, though, as yet.”
“You mean that the novelty hasn’t worn off yet? No more it has; but even when it did, that would make but little difference. There is a charm about this beautiful country, with its solitudes, its grand mountains, and rolling plains, and wild associations, which, so far from becoming tame, would grow upon one. And the climate, too, is perfect.”
Naylor laughed diffidently. “Yes; but there’s another side to that picture. How about bad seasons, and drought, and war, and locusts, and stock-lifting, and so on? It isn’t all fun here on the frontier.”
“Now, I won’t be disenchanted,” she retorted, with a bright smile. “You must not try and spoil the picture I have drawn.”
“Then I won’t. Hallo, Ethel! We’ve been looking for you,” he added, turning as he, for the first time, discovered she had joined them. “Here’s Miss Strange prepared to swear by the frontier—in fact, she has done so already.”
“Yes?” said Ethel, coming forward to greet Lilian; and Claverton could not help contrasting the two as they stood together: the one with her soft, dark, winning beauty, the lovely eyes never losing for a moment their serene composure; the other, bright, laughing, and golden, the full red lips ever ready to curl in mischief-loving jest or mocking retort, and hair like a rippling sunbeam. Yet nine men out of ten would probably have awarded the palm to Ethel. “Yes?” she said, and, in her heart of hearts, added, “and with her own reasons.” She did not feel very cordially towards Lilian just then.
“She says it’s perfect, all round,” went on Naylor—“a young Paradise.”
“I don’t know,” said Ethel. “I shouldn’t like to stay on the frontier all the year round. One would miss the balls and theatre in Cape Town.”
“Aha!” laughed Emily, “Ethel is still intent on slaughter. She made such havoc last session; ever so many poor fellows threw themselves off the cliffs on Table Mountain on her account; how many was it, Ethel—twenty-five?—that she had to be spirited away in the night for fear of the vengeance of their bereaved mammas.”
“Call it fifty while you’re about it,” she answered. “How awfully hot it has become!”