“Delighted to see you! What a pleasant chance meeting to be sure!”
Then Matty ran up for her share of the pleasure, and was warmly greeted.
Ah! but Mr Hall had a sad story to tell. “I am now a lonely, childless man,” he said. “What!” cried Reginald—“is Ilda—”
“She is dead and gone. Lived but a week in Italy—just one short week. Faded like a flower, and—ah, well, her grave is very green now, and all her troubles are over. But, I say, Grahame, we have all to die, and if there is a Heaven, you know, I daresay we shall be all very happy, and there won’t be any more partings nor sad farewells.”
Reginald had to turn away his head to hide the rising tears, and there was a ball in his throat that almost choked him, and quite forbade any attempt at speaking.
The two old friends stayed long together, and it was finally arranged that Mr Hall should pay a long visit to the old Laird McLeod, and that Reginald should have the loan of his little favourite Matty in a voyage to the South Sea Island.
The cruise of the Highland Mary was a long but most pleasant and propitious one. They steamed through the Straits of Magellan, and were delighted when the yacht, under, a favouring breeze, went stretching west and away out into the blue and beautiful Pacific Ocean.
Dickson had taken his bearings well, and at last they found themselves at anchor in the bay off the Isle of Flowers, opposite the snow-white coralline beach and the barracks and fort where they had not so long ago seen so much fighting and bloodshed.
Was there anyone happier, I wonder, at seeing her guests, her dear old friends, than Queen Bertha? Well, if there was, it was honest Oscar on meeting his long-lost master.