Yes, he would own one of the biggest and most delightful of these mansions; he should keep fleet horses, a beautiful carriage, a boat—he must have a boat, or should it be a gondola? Yes, that would be nicer and newer. In this boat, when the moonlight silvered the water, he would glide over the bay, returning early to his happy home. His bonnie sister should be there, his brother Rupert—the student—his mother, and his hero, that honest, bluff, old father of his. What a dear, delightful dream! No wonder he did not care to return to the realities of his city life till long after the sun had set over the hills, and the stars were twinkling down brighter and lovelier far than those lights he had so admired the night his ship arrived.
He was returning slowly one evening and was close to the city, but in a rather lonely place, when he noticed something dark under the shade of a tree, and heard a girl’s voice say:
“Dearie me! as missus says; but ain’t I jolly tired just!”
“Who is that?” said Archie.
“On’y me, sir; on’y Sarah. Don’t be afear’d. I ain’t a larrikin. Help this ’ere box on my back like a good chummie.”
“It’s too heavy for your slight shoulders,” quoth gallant Archie. “I don’t mind carrying it a bit.”
“What, a gent like you! Why, sir, you’re greener than they make ’em round here!”
“I’m from England.”
“Ho, ho! Well, that accounts for the milk. So’m I from Hengland. This way, chummie.”
They hadn’t far to go.