‘Oh! dreamy and luxurious southerner,’ laughed he. ‘A life of lotus-eating! Has it affected the tenor of your mind with any indisposition to exertion or change?’
‘As far as I can pretend to know, it has had the reverse tendency in my case. I have always had a passionate desire to travel. I am my father’s own daughter in that respect, he says.’
‘And where has Mr. Frankston chiefly been?’
‘Where has he not been? When he was young he managed to get away to sea, and roamed about the world splendidly; he has been to New Zealand, of course; all over the South Sea Islands; besides having travelled to England and the Continent, the East and West Indies, Russia, America, China, and Japan.’
‘You quite take my breath away. Your papa is a perfect Marco Polo. But why should he have gone to England?’
‘In order to see it, of course. Every Australian with sufficient brains to comprehend that there are more streets in the world than George Street would like to do that.’
‘And was Mr. Frankston born in Australia? I thought he told me that he had been ten years here.’
‘So he has been, and fifty more. He did not say only ten years. He likes to joke about being taken for an Englishman, and says it is because he has a red face and a white waistcoat.’
‘Well, I do not see the resemblance on those grounds,’ made answer Mr. Neuchamp guardedly. ‘But really, your papa is so exactly like an old gentleman of my acquaintance, who is a very Briton of Britons, that I took it for granted that he must be English.’
‘So he is English, and so am I English; only we were not born in that small great country. But you must think that there ought to be some distinguishing manner, or accent, about Australians, or you would not exhibit surprise at the resemblance.’