"So you're crackin'!" laughed Tiny; and as the old bush slang filled her mouth unbidden, the smell of a hot wind at Wallandoon came into her nostrils; and there seemed no more to be said.
But that last assurance of Ruth's was still ringing in her ears when her thoughts got back from the bush. She did not believe a word of it. Yet it was more or less true. Nor was Erskine far wrong in any opinion he had expressed to his wife concerning Christina, of whom, perhaps, he had said even less than he thought.
She was not, indeed, to be called an intellectual girl, in these days least of all. That was her misfortune, or otherwise, as you happen to think. Intellectual possibilities, however, she possessed: raw brain with which much might have been done. Not much can be done by a governess on a station in the back-blocks. Merely in curing the girls of the twang of Australia, more successfully than of its slang, and in teaching Tiny to sing rather nicely, the governess at Wallandoon had done wonders. But gifts that were of more use to Christina were natural, such as the quick perception, the long memory, and the ready tongue with which she defended the doors of her mind, so that few might guess the poverty of the store within. Nor had the governess been able to add much to that store. The liking for books had not come to Christina at Wallandoon; but in Melbourne she had taken to reading, and had reveled in a deal of trash; and now in England she read whatever Erskine put in her hands, and honestly enjoyed most of it, with the additional relish of being proud of her enjoyment. Erskine thought her discriminating, too; but converts to good books are apt to flatter the saviors of their taste, and perhaps her brother-in-law was a poor judge of the girl's judgment. He liked her for finding Colonel Newcome's life more touching than his death, and for placing the Colonel second to Dr. Primrose in the order of her gods after reading "The Vicar of Wakefield." He was delighted with her confession that she should "love to be loved by Clive Newcome," while her defense of Miss Ethel, which was vigorous enough to betray a fellow-feeling, was interesting at the time, and more so later, when there was occasion to remember it. Similar interest attached to another confession, that she had long envied Œnone and Elaine "because they were really in love." She seemed to have mixed some good poetry with the bad novels that had contented her in Melbourne. Two more books which she learned to love now were "Sesame and Lilies" and "Virginibus Puerisque." It was Erskine Holland's privilege to put each into her hands for the first time, and perhaps she never pleased him quite so much as when she said: "It makes me think less of myself; it has made me horribly unhappy; but if they were going to hang me in the morning I would sit up all night to read it again!" That was her grace after "Sesame and Lilies."
"Why don't you make Ruth read too?" she asked him once, quite idly, when they had been talking about books.
"She has a good deal to think about," Erskine replied after a little hesitation. "She's too busy to read."
"Or too happy," suggested Tiny.
Mr. Holland made a longer pause, looking gratefully at the girl, as though she had given him a new idea, which he would gladly entertain if he could. "I wonder whether that's possible?" he said at last.
"I'm sure it is. Ruth is so happy that books can do nothing for her; the happy ones show her no happiness so great as her own, and she thinks the sad ones stupid. The other day, when I insisted on reading her my favorite thing in 'Virginibus——'"
"What is your favorite thing?" interrupted Erskine.
"'El Dorado'—it's the most beautiful thing you have put me on to yet, of its size. I could hardly see my way through the last page—I can't tell you why—only because it was so beautiful, I think, and so awfully true! But Ruth saw nothing to cry over; I'm not sure that she saw much to admire; and that's all because you have gone and made her so happy."