‘I am so glad that she is going,’ exclaimed my poor little caged bird, clapping her hands at her success. ‘Take great care of her, Robert; she is so kind to me.’
‘I will take care of her, Janie,’ I answered, earnestly, ‘and of you too. You may trust me, my dear; at least I hope so.’
‘Of course you take care of me, sir,’ she replied, with a pretty pretension of pouting, ‘because I am your wife; but I am not so sure about my poor cousin.’
‘Be sure, then, Janie, if you can. I shall try to do my duty by both of you.’
‘Who talked of duty?’ cried my wife, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I never saw any one grown so grave as you have, Robert; you never seem now to be able to take a joke.’
I defended myself from this accusation on the plea of having found several grey hairs in my moustache last week; and before Janie had done laughing at the idea, Miss Anstruther reappeared, and I lifted her on her horse as though she were an ordinary friend to me, and my hands did not tremble under the burden of the creature I loved best in the world.
We rode on in silence together for some moments, and then I turned my horse’s head towards the sandy plain which I have before mentioned as lying between us and the ocean, and told her that I was about to take her down to the beach, that she might derive a little benefit from the sea-breeze.
‘Colonel Anstruther will not think that we have been taking sufficient care of you, Margaret, if we send you to him with such pale cheeks as you have now. I am afraid you find the hot weather very trying.’
‘I never liked the hot weather, even in England,’ she answered vaguely, whilst the rich blood mounted to her cheek beneath the scrutinising glance which I had turned towards her.
Our beach at Mushin-Bunda is hardly to be called a beach; for it possesses scarcely any shingles, but is composed of hillocks of loose sand which never stay in one place two nights together, but are ever shifting quarters, and are about as treacherous footing for an animal as one could desire. We passed over these carefully, however, and then we found ourselves upon the lower sands, which are daily washed by the sea, and rendered firm and level. Here we halted; for it was low tide, and the refreshing salt breeze fanned our hot faces, whilst the horses we rode stretched out their necks, and dilated their nostrils as though to drink in as much of it as they could.