“You don’t care about breaking our hearts, you naughty boy!” said his sister, pressing her cheek against his, as they looked over the same book. “What are we all to do when you are gone! You don’t think how lonely and miserable the place will be.”
“Are you going to stay here all your life, Laura? If you will, I will. But don’t think I shall not feel the parting bitterly; I quite tremble to think of it. How miserable I was when you were in Sydney! But what is a man to do? A few years of self-denial and hard life now will make things easy for the rest of our days. I am the working head of the family now. Father is not the man he used to be. And if I take life too easily for the next few years, all these great opportunities will be gone, and we shall regret it all the rest of our lives.”
“But the risk!” sighed Laura; “the wild country, blacks, thirst, fever and ague. Every paper brings news of some poor fellow losing his life out there. What should we do if you were taken? Remember how many lives you carry about with you.”
“You set a great value on Hubert Stamford,” he said jokingly, while something in his eyes showed a deeper feeling. “Other people wouldn’t think any great loss had taken place if I dropped. But men still go to sea, though wrecks occur. Think how nice it will be when I return bronzed, and illustrious, a gallant explorer with a whole country-side taken up for ‘Stamford and Son,’ with runs to keep and to sell, and to give away if we like.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be stopped; you are an obstinate boy, though no one would think it. I think I shall take possession of the piano and sing you that lovely ‘Volkslied,’ though I’m afraid my voice is weak after the night journey.”
Laura had taken a few lessons in Sydney, very wisely. Her naturally sweet, pure voice and correct intonation were therefore much aided by her later instruction.
“You have improved,” said her brother. “I never expected you to turn out such a prima donna, though there is a tone in your voice that always makes me wish to cry, as if that would be the height of enjoyment. You brought up a duet for me, didn’t you? Well, we won’t try it to-night. You’re rather tired, I can see. We’ll attack it some morning after breakfast, when we’re fresh.”
From this day forward, life flowed on with uninterrupted felicity for the Windāhgil household. It was nearly a week before the excitement passed away of enjoying all the treasures and novelties brought from the metropolis. The weather even became favourable to the new development of the garden, in which Mr. Stamford and his wife were principally interested. Genial showers refreshed the soil—always inclined to be thirsty in that region—so that Mrs. Stamford’s ferns and flowers, and plants with parti-coloured leaves, as well as her husband’s new varieties of vegetables, shrubs, and fruit trees, all partook of the beneficence of the season.
As for Hubert and his sisters, they rode and drove about by day whenever the weather was favourable; indeed sometimes when it was not. They read steadily at the new books by night, and by that means, and a few visits to old friends in the neighbourhood, filled up every spare moment in a mode of life each day of which was consciously and unaffectedly happy.
In addition to these quasi-pastoral occupations, one day brought the exciting news that a new proprietor—indeed a new family—was about to arrive in the district—now the owner of a sheep station distant from Windāhgil about twenty miles had for some months, indeed since the change of season, cherished hopes of selling out to advantage.