Claverton started ever so slightly and bowed. He was wondering where on earth this vision of loveliness had suddenly dropped from in this out-of-the-way place. And Mr Brathwaite had said, “My brother’s children.”
The girl shot one glance at him from under the curling lashes as she acknowledged the introduction, and a gleam of merriment darted across the bright face. Each had been trying to read off the other, and each had detected the other in the act. She turned away to greet her cousin.
“Why, what in the world has brought you here?” cried that jovial blade in his hearty voice. “We weren’t expecting you for ever so long. Where’s Laura?”
“The Union Company’s steamer Basuto. Cobb and Co, and Mr Jeffreys’ trap. Laura’s in the next room. One question at a time, please.”
Jim roared with laughter as he took his seat at the table. Between himself and Ethel much sparring took place whenever the pair got together.
“Sharp as ever, by Jingo,” he cried. “I say, Ethel, I wonder you haven’t been quodded for bribery and corruption. They say Uncle George only gets returned by sending you round to tout for votes.”
The point of this joke lay in the fact that her father was a fervid politician and a member of the Legislative Assembly. Before Ethel could retort, a diversion was created by the entrance of Mr Brathwaite and his other niece. Laura was her sister’s junior by a year, and as unlike her as it was possible to be. She was a slight, graceful girl, with dark hair and eyes, and as quiet and demure in manner as the other was merry and impulsive; and though falling far short of her sister in actual beauty, yet when interested her face would light up in a manner that was very attractive. So thought, at any rate, our friend Hicks, on whom, during her last visit at Seringa Vale, Laura had made an impression. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Hicks was very hard hit indeed.
“Really, those two are too bad,” said Mrs Brathwaite. “Beginning to fight before they have been five minutes together. Isn’t it too bad of them, Arthur?”
He appealed to, looked up just in time to catch Ethel’s glance of defiance which said as plainly as words: “You mind your own business.” She was not going to defer to the opinions of this stranger, and did not see why he should be called upon to decide in the matter. No doubt he had come out there with the notion that they were a mere set of half-civilised, ignorant colonials whom it was his business to set right. Those new arrivals from England always gave themselves such airs, and expected to have everything their own way. That might do with the old people and good-natured Jim, but it would not go down with her, Ethel Brathwaite, aged nineteen, and she intended to let him know it. She had taken a dislike to this new arrival, which he saw at once, and the idea rather entertained him.
“Uncle, I declare Jim gets worse and worse as he grows older. Yes—older, Jim, for you’re quite grey since I saw you last, you know. How are you, Mr Hicks?” she continued, as that tardy youth entered the room. “Have you shot your twenty backs yet? You know we said last year we should vote you out of our good opinion unless you could show as twenty pairs of horns fairly killed by your own gun when next we met?”