“Go after her, girls,” Mrs. Weston said, crying softly herself. “Tell her all about it. She has been breaking her heart for a month.”
Left alone, John Weston looked long at his wife.
“I seem to remember Sarah once remarking that you’d never know where you were with them twins!” he said.
CHAPTER VIII
GETTING ON TERMS
REX FORESTER arrived three days after Christmas. The twins drove in to meet him, well charged with pity. A little boy of nine, whose family has just sailed in a body for Colombo, may be expected to be an object for anyone’s compassion, and Jean and Jo fully expected a tear-stained and disconsolate individual.
Instead, there stepped from the train a perfectly self-possessed young gentleman. Nothing was awry about him, and no tear seemed likely to find a lodging on his cheek. His light suit was unspotted by a journey that reduced most small boys to monuments of grime; his sailor hat sat jauntily upon his well-brushed head. He wore spectacles, which gave him a curious air of dignity. Very fair was he, with large blue eyes and a skin of milk and roses. Nature seemed to have destined him to sing in a choir; and as there was no such opening for him at Emu Plains, the twins may be excused for wondering what on earth they were going to do with him. They also wondered what Billy would think of him.
They had shopping to do in the township, so Jo drove into the little main street and held the horses while Jean transacted the commissions. Rex declined to get down, saying he would rather stay in the buggy—a mode of conveyance which interested him a good deal, since he had had no experiences save of motors. He had expected a motor, and had been frankly amazed at the high, light buggy into which he was expected to climb.
“I didn’t know anyone used these things,” he said. “Not—well, not our sort of people, you know.”
“Oh, you’ll find quite a lot here and there,” Jo told him. “Some even prefer them. No nasty smell of petrol, like motors have.”
“Oh, not decent cars,” Rex answered, in a pained way. “I suppose some smell of petrol, though I really don’t know. But not good cars.”