Effie, smiling through her tears. “Thank you, Captain; you always give us hope.”
Captain Fitzroy. “And I suppose you mourn because you’ve had to leave bonnie Glen Lyle—eh!”
Mrs Lyle. “Oh yes. We dearly love the old house.”
Captain Fitzroy. “Well, then, let me prophesy. First, the boys will return safe and sound, red and rosy; secondly, you’ll get over your difficulties, and return to Glen Lyle; thirdly, we’ll live together happy ever afterwards.”
Effie laughs now in spite of herself, for the old Captain always looks so cheery and so comical.
Captain Lyle. “Hear that, darling! Now, bustle about, Effie, and get us some nice brown tea and brown toast, while we sit here and chat.”
Captain Fitzroy, looking seaward. The ocean is a sheet of blue, with patches of green here and there, where cloud shadows fall, and sails like sea-birds far away towards the horizon.
“What a heavenly day, to be sure! Why, there is health in every breath one inhales on this delightful coast. Don’t you feel cosy now and happy in this sweet little cottage? Nothing to do. Nothing to think about except the absent ones. No care, no worry except that of making war upon the weeds in your little garden. I declare to you, Lyle, my lad, I consider such a life as you now lead in a manner quite idyllic.”
Lyle, looking thoughtfully for a moment or two on the ground, then up at his friend’s cheerful face.
“One of the chief pleasures of my present existence, dear Fitzroy, lies in the fact that I have you for a neighbour. But to tell you the truth, I do feel happier since I let the lauds of Glen Lyle and got rid of an incubus. I feel, and know now, I am retrenching, and that in a few years I shall recover myself.”