‘Welcome from Palestine!’ she said, unconsciously following out his train of thought, as she ran forward and clasped him by the hand. ‘I don’t know whether one can call any part of the bush the Holy Land; but you have been away quite long enough to have gone there. Had you vowed a vow never to come back till rain fell? People may stay away too long sometimes.’ Here she gazed at Ernest with a long, searching, humbled gaze, which suddenly brightened as when the summer cloud catches the partially obscured sun-ray. ‘But here is Augusta, coming to ask you if Rainbar won’t be swallowed up in a second deluge now that the drought has broken up, as she is credibly informed is always the case in Australia!’ A mischievous twinkle in her mirthful eye informed Ernest that his cousin’s peculiarities had been accurately measured by the prepossessing reviewer before him.
As Miss Neuchamp, also attired in full evening costume, approached, while not far behind, with the air of a confirmed _habitué_, sauntered Mr. Jermyn Croker, Ernest thought he had never seen that young lady look to greater advantage. Something had evidently occurred with power to revive an attention to the details of dress which had been suffered of late to lie in abeyance. There was also a novel expression of not unbecoming doubt upon her resolute features which Ernest had never observed before. It soon appeared, however, that her essential characteristics were unchanged.
‘I am truly glad to see you, my dear Ernest,’ she said, offering him her cheek with proper cousinly coolness. ‘I hear that a beneficial change has taken place in your shocking climate. Mr. Croker says that prices have risen to their outside limit, and cannot possibly last. Of course you will sell out at once and go home?’
‘Of course I shall do no such thing,’ returned Ernest, with such unusual animation that Antonia could not help smiling. ‘I should consider it most ungrateful, as well as impolitic, to quit the land which has already done much for me, and may possibly do more.’
‘Well done, Ernest, my boy!’ said Mr. Frankston, who had just joined the party. ‘Never quit the ship that has weathered the storm with you while a plank is left in her. Now that we have our country filled with the sweepings of every port under the sun, we want the captain and first officer to act like men, and show the stuff they’re made of.’