“The very thing! Do you think she will like the idea?”
“Like it? She will be charmed. He will come to England with the men of the Orlando, who are to be replaced, and they can be married as soon as she can get her trousseau together. We shall go to England much about the same time as the Admiral, so that Mr. Harcourt will be on full pay the whole time. I dare say it will be two or three months before he gets another ship. Poor dear Sheila, she never dreamed of being married from a castle, any more than I did of living in one after I was married.”
“Or that I should give her away, as I suppose I shall have to do,” rejoined her husband. “‘Giving agreeable girls away,’” he hummed—“I shall feel like the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe.”
When this deep-laid plot was unfolded to Sheila, she entered into the spirit of it with enthusiasm, expressing the deepest gratitude, as with tears in her eyes, she thanked her tried friends for their thoughtful kindness. “I was rather down about being left alone here,” she confessed. “It was all very well when I belonged to your party, but being here by myself till the fleet returned, and fancying all sorts of things in Mr. Harcourt’s absence, was different.”
“The advantage is not altogether on your side, Sheila. You will be company for me when my husband is away. We’re both Australians, you see, and there are many things in common between us; old bush memories and adventures, that an English friend, however nice she was, wouldn’t understand. Really I feel quite cheered up, now I know you’re coming with us.”
“And what do I feel?” cried Sheila—“but I won’t describe it.” Her colour deepened, and her dark grey eyes glowed, as she stood up and looked at her benefactress with passionate emotion in every line of her expressive face. “Yes! I feel that I could die for you”—she clasped Imogen’s hand as she spoke, and kissing it again and again, rushed from the room.
“Her Irish blood came out there,” said Blount; “how handsome the girl has grown, and what a figure she has! She’ll rather astonish our untravelled friends in England. You’re quite right, though, as to her being a comfort to you in foreign parts, and you can talk about the Upper Sturt, and dear old Marondah together, when you feel low-spirited.”
“Dear Marondah!” said Imogen, softly; “I wonder when we shall see the old river again, and the willows, dipping their branches into its clear waters.”
“Oh! you mustn’t let yourself run down, that way. Bruce will be home next summer, if bullocks keep up and the price of wool. Think how they’ll enjoy coming to stay with us, and what shooting and hunting he and I can have together. Sheila can hunt too. I’ll smoke a cigar in the garden, and you’d better go to bed, my dear.”