“And with blue eyes and golden hair!” said he.
“Even so,” said I.
“No more like a savage than I am?” said my father.
“Much less so,” said I.
When at length he did take in the fact, he flung his arms round my neck for the second time that day, and did his best to strangle me. Then, under a sudden impulse, he thrust me out into the passage and shut and locked the door.
“You won’t pillow your head on oblivion now, will you, daddy?” I asked through the keyhole.
“Get away, you deceiver!” was the curt reply.
But surprises did not come singly at that time. Call it a miracle, or a coincidence, or what you will, it is a singular fact that, on the very next day, there arrived at Sunny Creek cottage four travellers—namely, Jack Lumley, the black-haired pale-face, Peter Macnab, and Big Otter.
On beholding each other, Jessie Lumley and Eve Liston, uttering each a little shriek, rushed into each other’s arms, and straightway, for the space of five minutes, became a human amalgam.
“Not too late, I hope?” said Lumley, after the first excitement of meeting was over.