“However, you will have to come and see me at Fontenaye!—how strangely it sounds—with Edward and the dear children, and we must get Mr. Tregonwell to make something happen to the Tasmanian Comstock, so that we will come out like a shot. But, oh! my dear old Australia! how I shall grieve at parting with you for ever!”
Then the sisters kissed, and wept in each other’s arms, and were comforted—so women are soothed in time of trial. On the next morning Imogen appeared at breakfast with an unruffled countenance, talking soberly to her husband and brother-in-law about the wonderful change in their future lives, and their departure by the next mail steamer.
This, of course, was imperative. The situation became urgent. Mr. Bruce agreed to remain until the P. and O. Rome, R.M.S. came for her load of so many thousand cases of Tasmanian apples, and with incidental passengers steamed away for Albany, Colombo, Aden, Cairo, and the East—that gorgeous, shadowy name of wonder and romance. Then would the Australian family return to their quiet home by the rippling, winding waters of the Sturt, and the English division return to become an integral portion of the rank and fashion, the “might, majesty and dominion” of the world-wide Empire which has stood so many assaults, and which still unfurls to every wind of Heaven the “flag that’s braved a thousand years, the battle and the breeze.”
It came to pass during one of the necessary conversations relative to the voyage, that Lord Fontenaye said to her ladyship, “Does anything occur to you, relative to Sheila Maguire, my dear Imogen?”
“Indeed, I have been thinking about her a great deal, lately,” said the youthful countess. “She can’t be married until Lieutenant Harcourt and the fleet return from the Islands. Till then, she will have to stay in Hobart.”
“Won’t that be a little awkward for her? She has no friends, that is to say, intimate friends, over here—though, of course, we could get her efficient chaperonage—eh?”
“I know what you are thinking of, Val! It would be the very thing—and oh! how kind of you.”
“What am I thinking of, and why am I so kind—have I married a thought reader, my dear Imogen?”
“Why, of course, you are intending to ask her to go home with us, and to be married from Fontenaye. It is a splendid idea. It would be unspeakably nice for her, and she would be such a help and comfort to me, on our travels.”