CHAPTER XXX.
There are many days of an Australian spring on which to remain within doors is an impossible heresy. This Sunday was one of them. The two who afforded Miss Julia Morton so irritating a theme for conjecture and comment were wandering in the Home Field in common with the rest of the Lullaboolagana household. Dr. Langdale had a little old-fashioned-looking book in his hand, and was engaged in the congenial task of supporting a theory Stella had started some days previously. She had found Virgil's 'Eclogues' full of notes in her deceased kinsman's handwriting, and it suddenly occurred to her that the Home Field was full of hints from those stately pastoral poems.
'Suppose we trace the resemblances one day?' said Langdale.
'May I say it?' asked Stella, smiling.
'You will say it, whether you may or not, when you look so mischievous, St. Charity.'
'Well, don't you think it is the German in you who suggests that heartless form of crushing my poor little fancy?'
'Now, as a penalty for that speech, I shall pelt you with proofs,' said Langdale, laughing.
And now he was going to make good the threat, armed with the little book in tarnished gold that bore traces of having been a treasured companion.
'I am waiting to be pelted,' said Stella.
'Well, there is Amaryllis, to begin with; swift as a fawn, lithe as a young pine, flitting by, pretending she does not hear the lay that Tityrus pipes on his lute——'