Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/510

 on this journey, and we're going to be no end jolly. The Armordens are coming over from Braid wood, and we shall be as happy as kings—much happier, indeed, by late accounts.'

'I'm sure you deserve it,' said Mrs. Bayard half-unconsciously to herself. 'But what a terrible day you must have had of it yesterday. It never ceased raining here. It is perishing weather even now. However you can endure your life in such a season as this, astonishes me.'

'We get used to it, Mrs. Bayard, like the eels, you know. Somebody must do it, or who would buy the Barallan cattle, and get them to market?'

'Yes, I see; but I can't bear to think of nice people—of one's friends, you know—sitting in the saddle through these long, dismal, bitter nights, or watching by fires in the forest, like demons or ghosts.'

'That's the pleasantest part of it, I assure you. When the virtuous drover has eaten his supper, made up his fire, and lighted his pipe, he feels—well, nearly as comfortable as Mr. Bayard here when he has locked up the house and put out the lamp for the night. It doesn't always rain, either.'

'Here are your letters and paper, Mr. Tressider,' said Melanie, who had quietly arisen from the breakfast-table; 'I was afraid dad would forget them again. Hadn't you better open them? I would if I had letters from England.'

'You have my permission,' said the lady of the house. 'Some people are dreadfully cold-blooded about letters. Fancy a woman leaving her letters unread all this time!'

'Theirs are pleasanter than ours,' murmured the recipient. 'That is, generally speaking. Ha! This seems a different hand from the last correspondent. I thought I knew the old fellow's writing well.'

With the sleepless curiosity of youth, Melanie and Jack had kept their eyes fixed upon their friend's face. To their great and unaffected surprise they observed him to flush all over, bronzed cheek and forehead, and afterwards to turn deadly pale. The letter slipped from his nerveless hand, and his eyes assumed such a fixed and strange expression, that the young people were alarmed. Mr. and Mrs. Bayard, with averted heads, were discussing matters of family interest, and so had escaped the bit of melodrama.

Mr. Bayard was recalled by Melanie's eager tones—