'And is it to be Jim and Lucy still?'
'Yes, to be sure. How changed you are! Come, come, sit down and talk. Talk till my senses come back to me. I am bushed!' She laughed a little hysterically.
'I have startled you.'
'No, no, it's pure gladness—it is indeed. It was good of you to come.'
'You are changed, too. Have you stood to your determination to be happy?'
'I am not unhappy.' She had seated herself beside him, and passed an arm about the shy child, of whom little more than one dark eye was visible, peeping at Jim from the other side, and yet that one eye recalled humorous impressions of Mrs. Donald Macdougal of Boobyalla. He expected to see it start revolving coquettishly.
'You are stronger. You have grown,' he said.
'Yes, I ride a lot with the children. It is good for me. I love it. This life agrees with me well. But it is not only a change in you, it is a transformation. Why, you can laugh!'
'Come, come! I could always laugh.'
She shook her head. 'Not convincingly. You love the new land? You have prospered?'