not used to it. She says they call her Missy at home; and we want to make her at home here, surely to goodness!”
Missy had smiled gratefully on John William and nodded confirmation of his statement to Mrs. Teesdale, who, however, shook her head.
“Ay, but I don’t care for nicknames at all,” said she, without the shadow of a smile; “I never did and I never shall, John William. So, Miriam, you’ll have to put up with your proper name from me, for I’m too old to change. And I’m sure it’s not an ugly one,” added the dour woman, less harshly. “Is your cup off, Miriam?” she added to that; she did not mean to be quite as she was.
It was at this point, however, that the visitor asked Mr. Teesdale the time, and that Mr. Teesdale, with a sudden eloquence in his kind old eyes, showed her the watch which Mr. Oliver had given him; speaking most touchingly of her father’s goodness, and kindness, and generosity, and of their lifelong friendship. Thus the long hand marked some minutes while the watch was still out before it appeared why Missy wanted to know the time. She then declared she must get back to Melbourne before dark, a statement which provoked some brisk opposition, notably on the part of Mr. Teesdale. But the girl showed commendable firmness. She would go back as she had come, by the six o’clock ‘bus from the township. None of them, however, would hear of the ‘bus, and John William waited until a compromise had been effected by her giving way on this point; then he went out to put-to.
This proved a business. The old mare had already made one journey into Melbourne and back; and that was some nine miles each way. There was another buggy-horse, but it had to be run up from the paddock. Thus twenty minutes elapsed before John William led horse and trap round to the front of the house. He found the party he had left mildly arguing round the tea-table, now assembled on the grass below the red-brick verandah. They were arguing still, it seemed, and not quite so mildly. Missy was buttoning a yellow glove, the worse for wear, and she was standing like a rock, with her mouth shut tight. Mr. Teesdale had on his tall hat and his dust-coat, and the whip was once more in his hand; at the sight of him his son’s heel went an inch into the ground.
“Only fancy!” cried the old man in explanation. “She says she’s not coming back to us any more. She doesn’t want to come out and stay with us!”
Arabella echoed the “Only fancy!” while Mrs. Teesdale thought of the old folks who had been young when she was, and said decisively, “But she’ll have to.”
John William said nothing at all; but it was to him the visitor now looked appealingly.
“It isn’t that I shouldn’t like it – that isn’t it at all – it’s that you wouldn’t like me! Oh, you don’t know what I am. You don’t, I tell you straight. I’m not fit to come and stay here – I should put you all about so – there’s no saying what I shouldn’t do. You can’t think how glad I am to have seen you all. It’s a jolly old place, and I shall be able to tell ‘em all at home just what it’s like. But you’d far better let me rest where I am – you – you – you really had.”
She had given way, not to tears, indeed, but to the slightly hysterical laughter which had characterised her entry into the parlour when John William was looking through the crack. Now she once more made her laughter loud, and it seemed particularly inconsequent. Yet here was a sign of irresolution which old David, as the wisest of the Teesdales, was the first to recognise. Moreover, her eyes were flying from the weather-board farmhouse to the river timber down the hill, from the soft cool grass to the peaceful sky, and from hay-stack to hen-yard, as though the whole simple scene were a temptation to her; and David saw this also.
“Nonsense,” said he firmly; and to the others, “She’ll come back and stay with us till she’s tired of us – we’ll never be tired of you, Missy. Ay, of course she will. You leave her to me, Mrs. T.”
“Then,” said Missy, snatching her eyes from their last fascination, a wattle-bush in bloom, “will you take all the blame if I turn out a bad egg?”
“A what?” said Mrs. Teesdale.
“Of course we will,” cried her husband, turning a deaf ear to John William, who was trying to speak to him.
“You promise, all of you!”
“Of course we do,” answered the farmer again; but he had not answered John William.
“Then I’ll come, and your blood be on your own heads.”
For a moment she stood smiling at them all in turn; and not a soul of them saw her next going without thinking of this one. The low sun struck full upon the heavy red fringe, and on the pale face and the devil-may-care smile which it over-hung just then. At the back of that smile there was a something which seemed to be coming up swiftly like a squall at sea; but only for one moment; the next, she had kissed the women, shaken hands with the young man, mounted into the buggy beside Mr. Teesdale, and the two of them were driving slowly down the slope.
“I think, John William,” said his mother, “that you might have driven in this time, instead o’ letting your father go twice.”
“Didn’t I want to?” replied John William, in a bellow which made Missy turn her head at thirty yards. “He was bent on going. He’s the most pig-headed old man in the Colony. He wouldn’t even answer me when I spoke to him about it just now.”
He turned on his heel, and mother and daughter were at last alone, and free to criticise.
“For a young lady fresh from England,” began the former, “I must say I thought it was a shabby dress – didn’t you?”
“Shabby isn’t the word,” said Arabella; “if you ask me, I call her whole style flashy – as flashy as it can stick.”
CHAPTER IV. – A MATTER OF TWENTY POUNDS
This is jolly!” exclaimed Missy, settling herself comfortably at the old man’s side as she handed him back the reins. They had just jogged out of the lowest paddock, and Mr. Teesdale had been down to remove the slip-rails and to replace them after Missy had driven through.
“Very nicely done,” the farmer said, in his playful, kindly fashion. “I see you’ve handled the ribbons before.”
“Never in my life!”
“Indeed? I should have thought that with all them horses and carriages every one of you would have learnt to ride and drive.”
“Yes, you would think so,” Missy said, after a pause; “but in my case you’d think wrong. I can’t bear horses, so I tell you straight. One flew at me when I was a little girl, and I’ve never gone near ‘em since.”
“Flew at you!” exclaimed Mr. Teesdale. “Nay, come!”
“Well, you know what I mean. I’d show you the bite – ”
“Oh, it bit you? Now I see, now I see.”
“You saw all along!”
“No, it was such a funny way of putting it.”
“You knew what I meant,” persisted Missy. “If you’re going to make game of me, I’ll get down and walk. Shall we be back in Melbourne by seven?”
Mr. Teesdale drew out his watch with a proud smile and a tender hand. He loved consulting it before anybody, but Missy’s presence gave the act a special charm. He shook his head, however, in answer to her question.
“We’ll not do it,” said he; “it’s ten past six already.”
“Then how long is it going to take us?”
“Well, not much under the hour; you see – ”
A groan at his side made Mr. Teesdale look quickly round; and there was trouble under the heavy fringe.
“I must be there soon after seven!” cried the girl petulantly.
“Ay, but where, Missy? I’ll do my best,” said David, snatching up the whip, “if you’ll tell me where it is you want to be.”
“It’s the Bijou Theatre –