The articles as they were taken out were piled up round the walls of the rooms, leaving but little space to move about. Mr Hayward at once went back to his hut, telling Paul and Harry that he was ready for them, and that there would be a bed for one of his cousins if he wished to come up. It was some time after the ladies had been shown their rooms, before they made their appearance at the supper-table—Mrs Berrington leaning on her husband’s arm, the elder girls following, having changed their travelling dresses for evening costume, such as was not often seen in the bush. Their cousins, who wore their usual plain dress, looked at them with no slight astonishment. Hector came in shortly afterwards, and took his seat without speaking.
“I am afraid that you must be very tired,” remarked Mrs Hugh to her sister-in-law.
“Yes, indeed; I wonder that I have survived it coming over those dreadful mountains—sufficient to shake the nerves of the strongest, and mine are sensitive to a degree,” was the answer.
“A few days of quiet will set you all to rights,” observed the captain. “Your girls do not appear to be the worse for it, though Hector looks somewhat knocked up.”
“Ah, yes! he takes after me,” said Mrs Berrington.
“I’m rather more bored than tired,” observed Hector. “I didn’t imagine that such a country as this was to be found in the Queen’s dominions.”
“It’s the finest country in the world, old fellow,” said Harry, from the other end of the table. “You’ll learn to like it in time. So cheer up, we’ll soon make a man of you.”
Hector turned a disdainful glance towards the speaker.
“Harry, do not let your tongue run loose,” observed his father, though with no very angry glance.
The conversation soon became general, Miss Emily Saville doing her best to make amends for her sister’s silence. She and her nieces expressed themselves delighted with the delicious fruits offered them, and the evening passed by more pleasantly than might have been expected. Reginald accepted his cousins’ invitation to accompany them to their quarters, thus enabling Hector to share his room with Rob and Edgar. It is not necessary to particularise how the rest of the family were stowed away.