He had donned the riding-suit in which he had arrived at Bunjil, and had also packed necessaries of travel in his valise, in case he might have to stay a day at a decent house. This sensible precaution (never needless in the wildest solitudes of Australia) now stood him in good stead. And he felt truly thankful, after being ushered into a comfortable bedroom, that he had resisted the temptation to start off without them. He was enabled, therefore, to issue forth reasonably fitted for the society of ladies, and the enjoyment of the hospitality of the period. So that, when shown into another room smaller than the first he had entered, but more ornate as to furniture, he felt comparatively at ease, notwithstanding the roughness of his late surroundings.
Mrs. Bruce was already there, and, rising from a sofa, said—
“Allow me, Mr. Blount, to introduce you to my sister Imogen.”
A tall girl had at this moment arisen, not previously referred to by his host or the lady of the house.
It was not an introduction—it was a revelation, as Blount subsequently described the interview. Mrs. Bruce was a handsome woman, tall and stately, as are many Australians, possessing, withal, fine natural manners improved by travel, and she might reasonably have been expected to possess a good-looking sister. For so much Blount stood prepared. But this divinity of the waste—this Venus Anadyomene—was above and beyond all expectation, all imagination or conception. He gazed at her, as he confessed to himself, with an expression of unconventional surprise; for Imogen Carrisforth was, indeed, a girl that no man with the faintest soupçon of taste or sentiment could behold without admiration.
Mrs. Bruce was dark-haired, with fine eyes to match, distinctly aristocratic as to air and carriage; her sister was fair, with abundant nut-brown hair shot with warmer hues, which shone goldenly as the lamplight fell across it. It was gathered in masses above her forehead and around her proudly-poised head, as she smiled a welcome to the stranger with the hospitably frank accost which greets the guest so invariably in an Australian country home. While looking into the depths of her brilliant hazel eyes, Blount almost murmured “O, Dea certe!” while doubting if he had ever before beheld so lovely a creature.
Mrs. Bruce attributed his evident surprise to the fact of his not having been informed of the fact of a second lady being at the house. “Ned ought to have told you,” she said, “that my sister was staying with us. She has just come from town, where she has been at school. She is so tall that really it seemed absurd to keep her there any longer.”
“You forget that I am eighteen,” said the young lady under observation. “My education should be finished now, if ever.”
“Indeed, I’m afraid you won’t learn much more,” said her brother-in-law, paternally, “though I’m not sure that another year under Miss Charters would not have been as well.”
“Oh! but I did pine so for the fresh air of the bush—the rides and drives and everything. I can’t bear a town life, and was growing low-spirited.”