And all the world was in the sea.”—Jean Ingelow.
The days passed pleasantly in excursions to Bimbalong, to the back paddocks, and in rides and drives along the perfect natural roads peculiar to the locality. In the long excursions, the twilight was upon them more than once before they reached home. Jack did not altogether neglect his opportunities. When he rode close to Maud’s bridle-rein, as they flitted along in the mild half-light between the shadowy pines, or the avenues of oak and myall, words would become gradually lower in tone, more accented with feeling, than the ordinary daylight converse.
“And so you think,” said Jack, on one of these pleasant twilight confidentials—Stangrove, who was driving, being rather anxious to get home before the light got any worse—“that I am not playing too hazardous a game in spending freely now, with the expectation of being so largely recouped within a year or two.”
“It is exactly what I should do if I were a man,” said the girl, frankly. “How men can consent to bury themselves alive in this wearisome, never-ending, bush sepulchre I cannot think. I should perish if I were compelled to lead such a life without possibility of change. When we think of the glorious old world, the dreamland of one’s spirit, the theatre of art, luxury, war, antiquity, which leisure would enable one to visit—how can one be contented?”
“I never thought I should feel contented on the Warroo,” said her companion; “yet now, really, I don’t find it so awfully dull, you know.”
“Not just at present,” answered Maud, archly. “Well, I am candid enough to own that, our families having joined forces since your visit, things are a shade more bearable. But fancy growing gray in this life and these surroundings. Twenty years after! Fancy us all at that date, here!”
“I can’t fancy it. What should we be like, Miss Stangrove?”
“I can tell you,” pursued the excited girl. “Mark much the same, gray and more silent—strongly of opinion that the Government of the day were in league with free selectors, and generally robbers and murderers. His opinions are pretty strong now. Then, of course, they would have ripened into prejudices. My sister-in-law, frail, worn out by servants and household cares; just a little querulous, and more indisposed to read.”
“And yourself?” asked Jack.
“Oh! I should have been quietly buried under a couba tree before that impossible period. Or, if I unhappily survived, would have become eccentric. I should be spoken of generally as a ‘little strong-minded,’ slight dash of temper, and so on; very fond of riding, and, they say, can count sheep and act as boundary-rider when her brother is short of hands. How do you like the picture?”