The Major assented with alacrity, and they followed Margaret upstairs, treading softly and on tiptoe as they entered the pretty airy room selected for Boy’s slumbers. It was a large room, and one corner of it was occupied by the big bed allotted to Margaret. In an arched recess, draped with white muslin, was a smaller and daintier couch,—and here Boy lay in his first sleep, his fair curls tossed on the pillow, his round soft face rosy with warmth and health, his pretty mouth slightly parted in a smile. Miss Leslie bent over him tenderly and kissed his forehead,—Major Desmond looked on in contemplative and somewhat awed silence. Presently he noticed a piece of string tied to the little fellow’s wrist. Pointing to it he whispered solemnly,
“What’s that?”
Margaret smiled.
“Oh, he just begged me to get him a bit of string,” she said. “He said he always had to fasten his Cow up at night lest it should run away!” Margaret laughed. “Bless the wee lad! And there you see is the Cow at the foot of the bed, and he has tied it to the string in that way himself!”
“Good gracious me!” said the Major, staring, “I never heard of such a thing in my life! And the Cow can’t run away! Lucky Cow!”
Boy stirred in his sleep and smiled. A slight movement of the chubby wrist to which the beloved “Dunny” was tied caused it to wag its movable head automatically, and for a moment it looked quite a sentient thing nodding wisely over unexpressed and inexpressible pastoral problems.
“Come away,” then said Miss Letty gently. “We shall wake him if we remain any longer.”
“Yes,” said the Major dreamily, “we shall wake him! And then the Cow might bolt, or take to tossing somebody on its horns, which would be very alarming! God bless my soul! What a little chap it is! Beginning to look after a cow at his time of life!—a budding farmer, upon my word! Letty, Australia is the place for him,—a wild prairie and cattle, you know,—he is evidently a born rancher!”
Letty laughed, and they left the room together. Margaret watched them as they went downstairs, and gave a little regretful sigh.
“Poor dear Miss Letty!” she thought. “The sweetest lady that ever lived, and no man has ever been wise enough to find it out and marry her.”