'If you hatch advice for me, I'll take it.'
'That's a pretty considerable engagement!' said Robina, lightly.
'Your eggs of advice ain't rotten like some folk's.'
'They won't be pearls like these!'
'How do you know? My eyes, Bob, there goes a regular old Dominican, looking just as if he was got up for a charade. What a place this is, to be sure! and how hard to fancy that it is but a few hours from home after all!'
The gift and the few words after it had brought Robina's outer and inner worlds unusually near together; and when she opened her little box in her room, she caught herself kissing the silver birds in a strange thrill of pleasure and yet of doubt whether Wilmet would think she ought to have accepted it.
The long, long journey ended in mazy sleep through the diligence part of the transit, all in the dark, but with a dim consciousness of wheels, voices, and bumps. It seemed quite the middle of the night, and far too troublesome to move, when at length she was extracted by William rather than by her own volition, and something in a white turban appeared before her dazzled eyes in the lamp-light, as stumbling with weariness, she was supported and guided by her companion's arm, and reviving in the cool night air, heard that 'it was but a few steps, and the Mem Sahib was waiting.'
Then a great door opened, and showed a flood of light intercepted by a tall figure, and then Robina found a pair of soft arms round her, and nestling close to a well-known bosom, felt the infinite relief of being off her own mind and with her who had ever been the very core of home!
'My Robin, my Robin! Is she quite well? Oh, this is nice! And Willie—' giving her sisterly kiss. 'Yes, we had your letter, we were so glad. Mrs. Purle, how are you? thank you for bringing her! There's some tea ready—Krishnu will show you.'
And then they were in the sitting-room, with its bright lamp and blazing wood fire, and thorough English tea, and Wilmet in muslin and blue ribbons, as they had never seen her but on rare gala days.