Fraseras eyes twinkled. He guessed what had occurred. “I suppose Charlie Broome,” (the bank manager at Boorala) “will be the next, Kate. I had a letter from him this morning, saying he would be here to-morrow. You had one also, I saw.”
“Oh, he is concerned about Cockney Smith's account,” said Kate serenely; “that is why he is coming, now that he knows we are going away.”
“Exactly,” said Fraser, stroking his beard. “It's wonderful the interest he takes in Cockney Smith—an extraordinary-ordinary interest.”
“Father, don't make fun of me—I can't help it. And his letter to me was so silly that I was ashamed to show it to you—I really was.”
“Oh, well, I don't want to see it, my child. I've read too many love-letters when I was on the Bench—some of them so 'excessively tender,' as that old ruffian of a Judge Norbury used to say in Ireland, more than a hundred years ago, that I had to handle them with the greatest care, for fear they would fall into pieces. Now, who else is there that is going to solicit your lily-white hand—which isn't lily-white, but a distinct leather-brown—before we get away? Lacey, I suppose, will be the next.”
“Not he, dad—the dear, sensible old man! He is wedded to his 'rag,' as he calls the Clarion. But, at the same time, I do look forward to seeing him again, and hearing his beautiful rich brogue—especially when he is excited.”
Gerrard came to the door.
“May I come in?” he asked His eyes were alight with subdued merriment, as he displayed an open letter. The mailman from Port Denison had just arrived.
“I have had a letter from my sister, Miss Fraser. She is leaving Sydney with my niece Mary, and coming to Ocho Rios. That is a bit of good luck for me, isn't it? And I am sure you and she and Mary will become great chums. She tells me that “—he hesitated a moment—“that as her affairs are in such a bad state she would like to come to me. And I am thunderingly glad of it Of course she doesn't know that Ocho Rios station has gone—in a way; but by the time she gets to Somerset—three months from now—she will find a new house, and we'll all be as happy as sandboys. Now, Miss Fraser, are you ready for an hour or two's fishing? You'll come too, Fraser?”
“Won't I? Do you think I would miss the last chance of fishing in Fraser's Creek?” and the big man took down his fishing-rod and basket from a peg on the rough, timbered sides of the sitting-room.