For a moment she stood smiling at them all in turn; and not a soul of them saw her next going without thinking of this one. The low sun struck full upon the heavy red fringe, and on the pale face and the devil-may-care smile which it over-hung just then. At the back of that smile there was a something which seemed to be coming up swiftly like a squall at sea; but only for one moment; the next, she had kissed the women, shaken hands with the young man, mounted into the buggy beside Mr. Teesdale, and the two of them were driving slowly down the slope.
“I think, John William,” said his mother, “that you might have driven in this time, instead o' letting your father go twice.”
“Didn't I want to?” replied John William, in a bellow which made Missy turn her head at thirty yards. “He was bent on going. He's the most pig-headed old man in the Colony. He wouldn't even answer me when I spoke to him about it just now.”
He turned on his heel, and mother and daughter were at last alone, and free to criticise.
“For a young lady fresh from England,” began the former, “I must say I thought it was a shabby dress—didn't you?”
“Shabby isn't the word,” said Arabella; “if you ask me, I call her whole style flashy—as flashy as it can stick.”
CHAPTER IV.—A MATTER OF TWENTY POUNDS.
This is jolly!” exclaimed Missy, settling herself comfortably at the old man's side as she handed him back the reins. They had just jogged out of the lowest paddock, and Mr. Teesdale had been down to remove the slip-rails and to replace them after Missy had driven through.