“That’s an extravagant price to pay for a day’s pleasure, pussy,” said her father fondly, as he watched the fire of enthusiasm glow in the girl’s bright eyes, which seemed to dilate and sparkle at intervals as if the glory of the grand vision had been transfused into her very blood. “You will count your years, as other people count their money, much more carefully as you grow older. But I trust, pet, that you will have long years of happiness before you, and that this is not the only one of earth’s precious things that you will enjoy.”
“What a divine pleasure travel must be!” said she, gazing steadfastly before her, as if looking out on a new world of wonder and enchantment. “Think of seeing, with one’s own very eyes, the cities and battle-fields of the earth, the shrines of the dead, immortal past! Oh! to see Rome and Venice, Athens and the Greek Isles, even dear old England with Saxon ruins and Norman castles. I wonder it does not kill people.”
“Happiness is rarely fatal, though the sensation of sudden joy is often overpowering,” remarked Mr. Stamford with a quiet smile, as he recalled his own recent experience. “But I hope you and Linda will qualify yourselves by study for an intelligent appreciation of the marvels of the Old World. That is,”—he added—“in the event of your being fortunate enough to get there. ‘We colonists have a great deal to learn in art and literature,’ as Lord Kimberley was pleased to say the other day. We must show that we are not altogether without a glimmering of taste and attainment.”
“That is the fixed British idea about all colonists,” said Laura with indignation. “I suppose Lord Kimberley thinks we do nothing but chop down trees and gallop about all day long. Well, one mustn’t boast, but we have been getting on with our French and Italian lately, and Linda’s sketches show something more than amateur work, I think.”
When they drew up at Chatsworth, and the cabman was opening the gold and bronze-coloured iron gates, Laura’s ecstasies broke out anew.
“Oh! father, do look; did you ever see such a beautiful place? Look at the gravel, look at the flowers, look at the sea which makes a background for the whole picture! Look at that purple mass of Bougainvillea covering all one side of the house. Why the lawn is like a big billiard table! It is a morsel of Fairyland. How happy they must be in such a lovely home!”
“Humph!” said Mr. Stamford, “perhaps the less we say about that the better. The people that live in the best houses do not always lead the pleasantest lives. But it certainly is a show place.”
It was truly difficult to overpraise the Chatsworth house and grounds. Nature had been bountiful, and every beauty was heightened, every trifling defect corrected by art.
The gravel of which the drive was composed was in itself a study—its dark red colour, its perfect condition, daily raked and rolled as it was to the smoothness of a board. Rare shrubs and massed flowers bordered the accurately defined tiled edges. The bright blue blossoms of the Jacaranda, the scarlet stars of the Hibiscus, the broad purple and green leaves of the Coleus, the waving, restless spires of the pine, the rustling, delicate banana fronds—all these and a host of tropical plants which the mild Sydney winter suffers to flourish in the open air, were here. Fountains, tennis-grounds, and shaded walks, all were to be found in the tiny demesne, every yard of which had been measured and calculated so as to produce the largest amount of effect and convenience.
The hot-house and green-houses were under the care of an autocratic Scotch gardener, who treated Mr. Grandison’s suggestions with silent contempt, and obeyed or defied Mrs. Grandison’s orders as to fruit or flowers entirely as it seemed good to him.