“I am very glad we have never been tried in that way,” said Mrs. Stamford, simply, looking up into her husband’s face. “I have pitied you, darling, when I have seen you tormented and anxious about money matters, but we have always been very happy among ourselves, even when things were at their worst. There is no chance now, I suppose, of our affairs going wrong? These Queensland stations are quite safe!”
“Quite safe, my dearest wife,” answered Harold Stamford, with a pang of remorse at his heart, as he imprinted a kiss on the fond face which had never looked into his save with truth and love shining in her clear eyes. “‘Safe as a bank,’ or suppose we say as Australian debentures. I don’t mind affirming that nothing, humanly speaking, could materially injure our investments now.”
“I am glad to hear that, for the dear children’s sake,” she answered. “If their future is secured, that is everything.”
Before the close of the summer, a naval squadron cruising in Australian waters, strange to say, happened to need partial refitting in Sydney Harbour, and, entering that picturesque haven, anchored as usual in Farm Cove. In one of the delicious sea-girdled nooks of Neutral Bay, it so chanced that Mr. Stamford had rented a furnished villa for the season. The ladies were wont to use the telescope in close inspection of any strange vessel that approached. Wonderful to relate, it appeared that the frigate which on a previous occasion had been the ocean home of Lieutenant Fitzurse was even now among the graceful war-hawks which, after battling with storm and tempest, were, so to speak, furling their pinions under Linda’s excited gaze.
There may or may not be a new system of marine telegraphy, but the fact comes within my experience that naval men have exceptionally prompt means of discovery, upon arrival in port, whether the ladies of their acquaintance are in town, and if so, where they abide.
It so chanced, therefore, that, upon the following afternoon, a gig left H.M.S. Vengeful, and with eight able seamen pulled straight for the Dirrāhbah jetty, landing the lieutenant and a brother officer, who, making their call in due form, betrayed great anxiety for the health of Mr. and Mrs. Stamford and the young ladies during their long absence from Sydney. They were also politely astonished at the news of Miss Stamford’s and Hubert’s marriages. Indeed, the recital of the family news (presumably) as conveyed by Linda to Mr. Fitzurse in full, during an examination of the green-house, lasted so long that Mrs. Stamford looked several times from the window, and the gallant tars in the boat referred to the protracted absence of their superior officers in unqualified Saxon terms.
What more is left to tell? It would appear that there might have been a previously implied, if unspoken confession between the young people. Reference being permitted to Stamford père, and satisfactory credentials forthcoming, it was arranged that an “engagement” should be officially allowed, hope being cautiously held out by that wary diplomatist that, in the event of the coveted “step” being attained, the full concession might be thought about. Which decision gave unqualified satisfaction, Linda being, as she averred, willing to wait for years; indeed rather glad on the whole, that separation and delay were necessary, so that she might have time to think over and thoroughly enjoy her unparalleled happiness.
With the autumn came the returning travellers, Hubert declaring that he dared not stay away another week from the Downs; frightful consequences might happen; Mr. Hope and Laura preparing to inhabit the comfortable abode which, for a few years to come, they had agreed, would be commensurate with their means. Something was said about Mrs. Hubert Stamford remaining at Wantabalree with her father while her husband went forth again on his task of subduing the waste. But that young woman replied promptly, with the opening words of an ancient family record, “Where thou goest, I will go.” In reference to the possibly rude architecture of their abode, she declared “that if Hubert had only a packing case to live in, she, being his wife, thought it her duty to live there with him.”