Page:Outlawandlawmak00praegoog.djvu/160

148 men wouldn't have paid so much attention to me. You always cut us poor things out. As it was, I rather enjoyed myself." Just now there was a truce between Elsie and Minnie Pryde. Minnie thought it more diplomatic, on the whole, to be good friends with her rival.

"Well, I'm glad of that," said Elsie, a little disdainfully: "I don't know why you should say that I cut you out."

"With a certain sort of man," replied Miss Pryde, weighing her words as though she were mentally discriminating. "There are some men who might like a girl like me best. But the English sort—and some of the Australian, for of course the Halletts are Australian—and men of a mysterious kind—heroes of romance—such as Mr. Blake—go in for you. You are more—more, well, I don't know how to put it—more like a girl in a book."

Elsie laughed, not ill-pleased. "And Mr. Blake?—he was there, of course?"

"Of course. He came in with the rest when they were sent for, like a lot of school boys, and stood at the Bar of the House. How funny it seems! I don't know why they shouldn't have been there all the time. And then the Governor read his speech, with the aide-de-camp in a tight red coat and the private secretary in another on each side of him, and Captain Briggs, of the surveying schooner, in a blue uniform—to represent the Naval forces of the colony I suppose—and Captain Macpherson for the military! Oh, it was funny, I can tell you. I felt inclined to call out to Macpherson 'What about Moonlight'—and Lady Stukeley, who was in green velvet, and such a diamond star fastening her bonnet, nodded when the Governor came to anything impressive. And afterwards, when all the swells had gone, we went over the House. And Mr. Blake came and spoke to me, and asked me where you were."

"And you told him, I suppose, that since I didn't happen to have a father or brother or cousin or very great friend in the Cabinet, I was naturally not invited. Are you going to hear the speeches this evening, Minnie?"

"Well, I will, if Ina will let me go with her," said Miss