"Of course he must come here," she exclaimed, with true Australian hospitality, unquestioning and ungrudging. "He must be properly nursed and fed." Mollie thought that Mamma looked rather pleased than otherwise at the prospect of nursing and feeding a good-looking young man newly out from home. Bridget was called, and between them all a room was got ready and made to look as homelike as possible. "Flowers and books," said Mrs. Campbell, "always make a room look pleasant. I wish I had some photographs. I wonder who his people are. We'll put up a picture of St. Paul's Cathedral, and this little water-colour of a Sussex village; they are not quite the same thing as his mother or sweetheart, but they will be better than nothing." She sighed as she looked at the water-colour. They were great people for sighing, Mollie thought. It must be rather miserable to be homesick so very, very far away from home!
When Prudence and Grizzel, accompanied by the boys, all not a little anxious about Mollie, arrived at home for dinner they found not only the missing Mollie but also Mr. John Smith on the balcony. Mollie ran down the steps to meet them, and gave a highly coloured account of her adventures. Past differences were forgiven and forgotten, and after dinner they all assembled on the balcony again with the benevolent intention of devoting themselves to the entertainment of the interesting invalid.
But Mrs. Campbell did not approve of this plan. "We are too many," she said in her decided way. "Prudence and Mollie may stay; the rest of you must run away for the present. Grizzel can go for a walk with Bridget and Baby; I want a few things from the Store, and they can be brought up in the perambulator. The boys had better go up to Mr. von Greusen's and see about getting Mr. Smith's belongings brought here."
"You might call at the Fairy Dell and get the Gordello," Prudence suggested—for after all she and Grizzel had made the new drink in a fit of remorse—"Mr. Smith will perhaps like to taste it."
The family melted away, and Mamma with the two girls settled down to needlework. Mamma's kindly interest invited confidence under these pleasant circumstances, and it was not long before the young man was pouring his story into her sympathetic ears. Prudence listened spellbound. It was not often that one had romance brought to one's very door—by a hero with a sprained ankle too! Such a romantic affliction! But Mollie was too much preoccupied by that haunting likeness to listen properly to what the hero was saying, once she had ascertained the fact that Mr. Smith belonged to the Campbell's Time, and that therefore she could not possibly have met himself before; it must have been somebody extraordinarily like him. And yet—the number of her friends was not so very great that one could be totally forgotten. She tried not to think about it, but it stuck in the back of her brain in an irritating sort of way and refused to be forgotten.
His story was not at all an uncommon one: a love-affair, a selection of angry parents, lack of money, eternal vows, and a young man in search of a fortune. He had been told that fortunes lay about loose in Australia.
"Not that I mind working," he said. "I like work all right, but it's so slow, and we are getting older all the time. I rather fancied a vineyard; our parents are great on their cellars and might come round to a vineyard and wine. I spent some time in France before coming here, but it was hopeless. They won't look at a foreigner in their wine concerns. As a matter of fact I have some hopes of my own governor relenting. I am his only son, and he is getting tired of keeping me at arm's length. There's nothing really in the way; only he had another wife in view for me, and Margaret's father had another husband. He is rather a cantankerous old party. Too much port wine is what is the matter with them both, that's my opinion; they're turning gouty."
As Mr. John Smith talked he pulled his watch out of his pocket and sprung it open. In the back lay a tiny photograph.
"That's Margaret," he said.
The others bent over the faintly tinted portrait of a young girl, pretty and smiling, her wavy hair rippling on either side of a smooth brow. Mollie glanced at it absent-mindedly; the back of her brain, she felt, was moving to the front; in another moment it would be there.