Upon one of these occasions, it chanced that father and daughter had ridden many miles around the run, and, approaching home again, came across one of the numerous small lagoons which lay to the north of the station.
The day had been intensely hot, scarcely a breath of wind moved the leaves of the stately Eucalypti, but over this lagoon hung a group of the drooping Myall, affording such shade that the squire proposed to dismount and rest themselves and their horses.
Bell, having found a comfortable resting-place, lit a pipe, stretched himself out and prepared for a rest, or, as he called it, a “Bange.”
He had not taken many puffs at his pipe when, turning his head, he found Annie busy with her sketching-block, a tiny one, which she carried in the pouch of her saddle.
“Why, Annie, what on earth are you going to sketch here?” said he. “Not that old scaly Moreton Bay ash on the opposite bank, surely?”
“No, father, you know I cannot sketch; but I am going to try and draw Robin Hood as he crops the grass there, and, if it is anything like, send it to Mat.”
“Why, you foolish little thing, there’s no post to where Mat has gone!”
“Then I will keep it until he returns, and give it him then.”
“I suspect, my girl, that you are keeping that little heart of yours until he returns.”
The colour mounted into Annie’s face as she heard these words from the squire’s lips, and, hastily putting down the drawing materials, and gazing with wide-open appealing eyes at her parent, she exclaimed,—