About the mother who had died when he was born, Jack never troubled his little head; two figures loomed large upon his childish horizon, Aunt Betty and father. Aunts and mothers stood about on a level in Jack's mind; it never suggested itself to him to be envious of the boys who had mothers instead of aunts, for Aunt Betty wrapped him round with a love so tender and wholesome, that the want of a mother had never made itself felt, but father stood first of all in his childish affection.
It was more than eight years since Lieutenant Stephens had come out from England in the man-o'-war which was to represent the English navy in Australian waters, and at Adelaide he had met Mary Treherne, a pretty Tasmanian girl, still in her teens, who was visiting relations there. It was a case of love at first sight with the young couple, who were married after a very short engagement. Then, whilst her husband's ship was sent cruising to northern seas, Mary came back to her parents, and there had given birth to her little son, dying, poor child, before her devoted husband could get back to her. Since then Lieutenant Stephens had received his promotion to Captain, and had occupied some naval post in the Australian Commonwealth, but his boy, at Betty Treherne's urgent request, had been left at the farm, where he led as happy and healthful an existence as a child could have. The eras in his life were his father's visits, which were often long months apart, and as each arrival was a living joy, so each departure was grief so sore that it took all little Jack's manhood not to cry his heart out.
"Some day—some day," he had said wistfully on the last occasion, "when I'm a big boy you'll take me with you," and his father had nodded acquiescence.
"It's not quite impossible that when I'm called back to England, I may take you over with me and put you to school there, but that is in the far future."
"How far?" Jack asked eagerly.
"That's more than I can tell; years hence very likely."
But even that distant hope relieved the tension of the big knot in Jack's throat, and made him smile bravely as father climbed to the top of the crazy coach that was to carry him to the station some eight miles away.
From that time forward, Jack insisted that Aunt Betty should measure him every month to see if he had grown a little.
"Why are you in such a hurry to grow up?" she asked, smiling at him one day. "You won't seem like my little boy any more when you get into trousers."
"But I shall be father's big boy," was the quick rejoinder, "and he'll take me with him to England when he goes. Did he tell you?"