Squire Broadbent paused here to exclaim, as he slapped his thigh with his open palm:
"By St. Andrews, brother, Archie is a chip of the old block! He's a true Broadbent, I can tell you. He appreciates the brains of his father too. Heads are what are wanted out there; genius to set the mill a-going. As for this country—pah! it's played out. Yes, my children, you shall go, and your father will follow."
"My dear Elsie and Rupert," the letter went on, "how I should love to have you both out here. I have not asked you before, because I wanted to have everything in a thriving condition first; but now that everything is so, it wants but you two to help me on, and in a year or two—— Hurrah! for dad and the mum!
"Yes, Elsie, your house is all prepared. I said nothing about this before. I've been, like the duck-bill, working silently out of sight—out of your sight I mean. But there it is, the finest house in all the district, a perfect mansion; walls as thick as Burley Old Tower—that's for coolness in summer. Lined inside with cedar—that's for cosiness in winter. Big hall in it, and all the rooms just fac-simile of our own house at home, or as near to them as the climate will admit.
"But mind you, Elsie, I'm not going to have you banished to the Bush wilds altogether. No, lassie, no; we will have a mansion—a real mansion—in Sydney or Brisbane as well, and the house at Burley New Farm will be our country residence.
"I know I'll have your answer by another mail, and it will put new life into us all to know you are coming. Then I will start right away to furnish our house. Our walls shall be polished, pictures shall be hung, and mirrors everywhere; the floors shall glitter like beetles' wings, and couches and skins be all about. I'm rather lame at house description, but you, Elsie, shall finish the furnishing, and put in the nicknacks yourself.
"I'm writing here in the stillness of night, with our doggie's head upon my knee. All have gone to bed—black and white—in the house and round the Station. But I've just come in from a long walk in the moonlight. I went out to be alone and think about you; and what a glorious night, Rupert! We have no such nights in England. Though it is winter, it is warm and balmy. It is a delight to walk at night either in summer or winter. Oh, I do wish I could describe to you my garden as it is in spring and early summer! That is you know, our garden that is going to be. I had the garden laid out and planted long before the house was put up, and now my chief delight is to keep it up. You know, as I told you before, I went to Melbourne with the Winslows. Well, we went round everywhere, and saw everything; we sailed on the lovely river, and I was struck with the wonderful beauty of the gardens, and determined ours should be something like it. And when the orange blossom is out, and the fragrant verbenas, and a thousand other half-wild flowers, with ferns, ferns, ferns everywhere, and a fountain playing in the shadiest nook—this was an idea of Harry's—you would think you were in fairyland or dreamland, or 'through the looking-glass,' or somewhere; anyhow, you would be entranced.
"But to-night, when I walked there, the house—our house you know—looked desolate and dreary, and my heart gave a big superstitious thud when I heard what I thought was a footstep on the verandah, but it was only a frog as big as your hat.
"That verandah cost me and Harry many a ramble into the scrub and forest, but now it is something worth seeing, with its wealth of climbing flowering plants, its hanging ferns, and its clustering marvellous orchids.
"Yes, the house looks lonely; looks haunted almost; only, of course, ghosts never come near a new house. But, dear Elsie, how lovely it will look when we are living in it! when light streams out from the open casement windows! when warmth and music are there! Oh, come soon, come soon! You see I'm still impulsive.