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After one or two preliminary sentences, Shafto's eyes fell upon these lines: "By this you will have heard that our Cossie will be afloat; she has been very restless and unsettled for a long time almost ever since you left; nothing seems to please her. First she took up nursing and soon dropped that; then she took up typing and soon dropped that.
But the small credit Sir Robert gave to her assertion was fully warranted the next morning by the ready manner in which she accepting a casual invitation to spend the ensuing day and night at Lady Shafto's. Her ladyship called on Miss Dorothy, and intended to have a party in the evening, invited the two young ladies to return with her to Woodhill Lodge, and be her guests for a week.
"Oh, there's lots to see in Burma," continued Salter, "an extraordinary mixture of people and races, and a most beautiful country; such splendid rivers and forests but here, in Rangoon, everyone has but one idea." In answer to Shafto's glance of interrogation he said: "We are a commercial community, and our sole aim and object is to work, to get rich, and go home."
I don't hold with them native medicines and charms, and I'm inclined to a weakness in me inside." "Why, you look as strong as a horse!" was Shafto's unsympathetic rejoinder, as he sank into a chair and pulled out a cigarette. The pongye contributed a special personal atmosphere, composed of turmeric, woollen stuff and some fiercely pungent herb.
There were a parson with a greedy-looking leather bag, an officer in uniform, and various smart ladies, hunting in couples. Among a quantity of jugs and basins, soup tureens and coarse crockery, Shafto's idle glance fell upon a frightful Chinese figure, the squat presentation of a man, about eight inches in height.
Ever since that moonlit night upon the Marsden's lanai, when her heart leaped at the sudden sound of his voice, she had realized what his coming meant to her, and ever since that breezy day upon the broad Pacific, with the sailor's song of "Land ho!" ringing from the bows, and he, her wounded soldier, had sprung to shield her from the crash of Shafto's hapless stumble, and the deck was stained with the precious blood from that soldier's reopened wound, shed for her for her who so revered him she had longed to hear him say the words that alone could unlock the gates of maidenly reserve and let her tell him tell him with glad and grateful heart that the love he bore her was answered by her own.
Seen in tell-tale daylight, and without his disfiguring glasses, the pongye looked years younger; hitherto Shafto's impression had been that his strange acquaintance was a man of fifty. Five-and-thirty would be nearer the mark.
She was tall, thin and angular, the thinness of her face accentuated by a pair of big horn-rimmed spectacles through which she glared at the newcomers. "Who be ye?" demanded the woman in a rasping voice. "We are the Overland Riders, and we are looking for Joe Shafto's place," answered Grace pleasantly. "I reckon ye ain't lookin' very hard," snapped back the woman.
"Ha as he gone?" she wailed weakly. "Yes. That is Mrs. Shafto's tame bear, you silly." "Merely a voice of nature that you heard, Emma," reminded Hippy. "By the way, what message did Henry convey to you?" "Henry is the name of Mrs. Shafto's pet," explained Grace. "Fright!" moaned Emma in answer to Hippy's question. "Mrs.
Once, when they had collided on the companion ladder, Shafto's agility alone had saved him from a heavy fall, and the obstructor had neither looked back nor offered apology. Probably he concluded that charming Miss Leigh, who accompanied his songs with such delicate sympathy, accorded too much of her society to this young man; and, after all, what was he?
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