"Tell your master I wish to speak to him in the drawing-room."
Scarcely had the housemaid turned her back than there came a loud ringing at the front-door bell. Another servant entered--the cook--in her hand a cablegram. Mrs. Harland was conscious that the envelope was addressed to Mr. Harland. As a rule enclosures addressed to him she held inviolate, but on this occasion she broke the rule. She tore the envelope open with a hand which slightly trembled. With her eyes she devoured the words which were written on the sheet of paper it had contained:
"Girls shipped by mistake. Boys following.--Bindon."
Those were the words which had been flashed across the seas. She read them over and over again. It seemed as though she could not grasp their meaning. She still held the telegram extended in her hand when her husband entered the room. That gentleman paused upon the threshold. Retaining the handle of the door in his hand, he appeared to be making an effort to comprehend the meaning of the scene within.
"What is it you want, Maria?"
"I--I want nothing." The lady put her hand to her brow with a gesture which was almost tragic. "This is Mr. Bindon's latest shipment."
She stretched out her hands towards the strangers in a manner which really was dramatic. The girls had dried their eyes to enable them, perhaps, to study Mr. Harland to better advantage. They stood in a row, the tallest at one end and the shortest at the other. The line of height descended in an agreeably graduated scale. Mr. Harland stared at the girls. Then he stared at his wife. "I don't understand," he said.
"Read that!"
The lady thrust the cablegram into his hand. He read it. He read it once, he read it twice, he read it even thrice. Then crumpling it up he thrust both hands into his trouser pockets and he whistled.
"This is a pleasant state of things," he said.