“Not for another year or two, Colonel, at any rate,” said Hubert, cheerily; “you’ve plenty of water here, and Willoughby must do a little ‘travelling’; anything’s better than throwing up the sponge.”
“I see little else for it,” said the Colonel, who had come to wear an anxious expression. Miss Dacre grew grave as she marked her father’s face, but she controlled herself with an effort, as it seemed to Hubert, and telling Linda to go into the drawing-room and admire her flowers, followed her guests. The men remained outside and lounged into the stable yard, where the horses and traps were being arranged, looking about them, and chatting on indifferent subjects before going to the house.
“What a pretty situation you have here!” said Hope. “The accomplished Mr. Dealerson, of whom I have heard so much, must have been a man of taste. How picturesquely the creek winds round the point near that splendid willow; the elevation is just sufficient, and the flat seems made on purpose for a few fields and the fruit-garden. The view of the distant mountain-range completes the landscape. Capital stabling too.”
“Oh! confound him!” growled Willoughby; “he was sharp enough to see that a smart homestead like this was just the thing to catch ‘new-chum’ buyers. It’s not bad in its way, but I hate the whole thing so, when I think of the price we shall have to pay for it, that I could burn the house down with pleasure.”
“I don’t know so much about that,” said Hope; “it doesn’t do to be hasty in realising in stock matters any more than in purchasing. You and Hubert had better have a good talk over accounts before I leave, and if he can suggest anything, perhaps we may manage to tide over for a while. He’s quite a rising man of business, I assure you.”
“I wish to heaven the governor had remained in Sydney with my sister, and sent me out to Queensland with him,” said the young man; “but it’s too late to think of that now. We must make the best of it. But I won’t stand grumbling here all day, Mr. Hope. Come in and we’ll see if there’s any lunch to be had. ‘Sufficient for the day,’ and so on?”
Hubert had found his way into the drawing-room before this colloquy had ended, and was looking over a collection of Venetian photographs which Miss Dacre had collected during their last visit to that city of the sea.
“I wonder if I shall ever see the Lion of St. Mark again?” she said. “I feel as if we were in another planet.”
“It is difficult to say where we shall all be in a few years’ time,“ said Hubert. ”I am not going to stay here all my life. But you won’t run away from Australia just yet, Miss Dacre?”
“I should think not,” she replied, cheerfully; “matters don’t look like it at present. The doubt in my mind is whether we shall ever be able to leave it. I don’t say that I am dissatisfied, but I should like to see the Old World again before I die.”