Chatting gaily, our hostess leads us through an open French window into the drawing-room, and we follow her, with a pleased and yet bashful sense of expectancy. Into the drawing-room, mark you! and a real drawing-room, too; not a visible make-believe, like the library in our shanty. This is a large room, furnished as people do furnish their best reception-chamber in civilized lands. Pictures hang on the varnished walls; books and book-cases stand here and there; tables loaded with knick-knacks, vases of flowers, workboxes, albums, and so forth; chairs and sofas and lounges; ornaments, statuettes, brackets, and various etcetera, betoken a life of greater ease than that of our shanty.
We sit around in an uncouth semicircle, awkward and somewhat ill at ease, for we feel ourselves a little out of place in that room. One cannot live the life that we have lived for years past, without feeling strange and uncomfortable when once again brought within the influence of refinement. So we look at our boots with a sense that our hobnails do not match with the white Japanese matting that covers the floor; and we sit on the edge of our chairs just as other rustics would do at home. Our hats removed, the results of Old Colonial's tonsorial operations are made fully apparent. Our hostess surveys us with a puzzled air. I think she is struggling with a desire to laugh at the quaint simplicity of the communal wardrobe of our shanty, as it is now displayed on our persons before her.
We have been petting the children, and, like other children, these are a trifle too observant. One of them, who is sitting on Old Colonial's knee, suddenly becomes aware of the state of his poll, and, pulling his beard to attract attention, asks—
"What made you cut your hair off?"
Old Colonial looks across at the Saint; and then, catching Mrs. Member's eye, he and she and all of us go off into peals and roars of laughter. In the midst of this the door opens, we catch sight of another lady entering, and we stumble confusedly to our feet. It is she!
Miss Fairweather comes forward, escorted by the Member, and followed by a straggling crowd of half a dozen men, similar barbarians to ourselves, who have got here before us. She is a pretty girl, a very pretty girl, would be considered so anywhere. Here, in her dainty elegance of costume, to our rude senses she appears almost too beautiful. She dazzles us altogether; we know no longer whether we are standing on our heads or our heels.
We are being severally introduced with all due ceremony. The little beauty is not by any means disconcerted at the ordeal; she is evidently used to the position she occupies; used to being regarded with awe as a superior being by ranks and regiments of bearded bushmen. She receives our reverential bows with an amused expression in her blue eyes, and shakes hands with us, one by one, with the air of a princess according gracious favours to her subjects. And a funny little incident occurs.
Miss Fairweather remarks to the Little'un that she thinks she has met him before; in Auckland, probably. Either she is mistaken, or, the Little'un has forgotten, and is shamefaced. He blushes the colour of beet-root. His huge frame wobbles in confusion; and, awkwardly trying to shrink out of sight, as his bashful habit is, he steps backward, and plants a giant heel upon O'Gaygun's toe. That outraged individual startles the assemblage with the sudden exclamation, "Gosh!" Endeavouring to extricate himself, he lumbers against the Saint and Dark Charlie, whom he sends flying into a centre-table. The table overturns, of course, and Dark Charlie's short, thick person sprawls and flounders heavily over it.
The ice is now thoroughly broken. The ladies fall into seats, fairly screaming with laughter, and all of us, except the unlucky ones, begin to feel more at home. Then Mrs. Member tells her friend all sorts of wild legends about our shanty, such as obtain among the feminine public of the district. She says we are just a pack of overgrown schoolboys, who are rapidly turning into absolute savages. And they banter us deliciously to their hearts' content.
But we are not noisy visitors, you know, on such occasions as these. On the contrary, the ladies do most of the talking, as some of us are absolutely tongue-tied. We can do nothing but sit and gaze at the young lady in our midst with all our eyes. She is a houri straight from Paradise, and we poor mortals just get a glimpse from beyond the gate, as it were.