Within the garden of the dead.
—R. Crawford.
THERE were no traces of storm when the girls awoke next morning. Mrs. Archdale came in with tea as soon as she heard their voices. Her face was quite smiling and happy.
“Very likely that dear old ‘Brownie’ of yours would say I shouldn’t give you early tea,” she observed. “And I’m sure she’d be right. But I do love it myself, and I’ve only got you for one morning, so I had to bring it! Jack says I’ll ruin my system with tea, and all I can say is, it’s a beautiful ending for a system!”
No one quarrelled with the tea or with the wafers of buttered toast that accompanied it. Mrs. Archdale talked briskly while the girls ate.
“It’s just a perfect morning,” she said. “Blue sky and a little breeze, and everything so clean and beautiful! You will have a lovely ride into the ranges. I’ve often threatened to make Jack take me up Ben Athol, but he regards me as quite insane when I mention it. But I should love to go.”
“Come with us,” Norah cried.
She shook her head.
“Oh, I couldn’t leave my old man,” she said. “We never go very far away from each other now. Some day I will persuade him to go, and perhaps we’ll find the remains of your camp. But the blacks won’t have left much of it.”
“Are there many blacks?” Jean asked, wide-eyed.