"Fun? Why it's heavenly. This lovely place! Oh, sometimes I dream that this is all a dream, and then—to wake up and find it real!"
"Well, dear, be as happy as you like now—all day and every day. You have had enough of the other thing to last you a precious long time."
They strolled on through the sweet May evening—on beneath a great beech hanger, where cushats cooed softly among the green mast, and the air was musical with the sweet piping of thrushes and the caw of homing rooks. Here and there a gap in the hawthorn hedge disclosed a glimpse of red-tiled roof and farm stack—and nestling among the trees of the park the chimneys of the Hall.
Laurence Stanninghame had found this place by a mere chance. He might have purchased it for a third of its value, but he preferred not. Possibly he distrusted the wandering blood within him, possibly he did not lose sight of the fact that where he had found the great diamonds he had certainly left behind many more, to be found or not at some future time. So he rented the house and park, and extensive shooting and fishing rights. No more pinching and scraping now. To the children this change was, as Fay had said, "heavenly."
"How do people get rich in Africa, father?" said the latter, as they turned homeward.
"In various ways. They find gold mines with no gold in them, and then sell shares in them to a pack of idiots for a great deal of money. Or they perhaps find a few diamonds themselves. Or they trade in all sorts of things—ivory, and so forth."
He had stopped to light a pipe; Fay, intently watching his face through the clouds of smoke he was puffing forth, detected a lurking quizzical expression in his eyes, which roused her scepticism.
"I never quite know whether you are serious or not, father," she said. "But you never tell us any stories about Africa."
"I've got out of practice for story-telling, little one."
"But Colonel Hewett tells us plenty,"—naming a neighbour,—"and yet he hasn't been so much in Africa as you have."