"I can't do it in less," Mr. Orban went on. "I am obliged to go down to Brisbane on business."
"To Brisbane!" Nesta cried. "O dad, couldn't you take us all with you? It would be lovely!"
"If you will find the fares, young woman, I shall be delighted," said her father, pinching her ear. "The journey to Brisbane is rather an expensive matter. I couldn't afford to take myself there just for the fun of the thing."
"When must you go, Jack?" asked Mrs. Orban, trying hard to speak steadily and naturally.
"Next week—as soon as possible, that is," Mr. Orban said; "and I will get back just as quick as I can. You will be all right, dear. I will tell Farley or Robertson to sleep up here in the house, and you won't feel so lonely at night."
"Oh no, no," Mrs. Orban said, "don't do that. They have both got their wives and families to look after. Eustace will be an efficient man of the house and companion to his mummie—won't you, son?"
"I'll do my best," Eustace said soberly.
To be quite honest, he was as startled as his mother at his father's announcement; he did not like the idea at all. He had caught that curious look in his mother's eyes, and it troubled him.
But Nesta was too much taken up with the thought of the parcel to notice anything except the delay in opening it.
"Couldn't we go on?" she pleaded.