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—I'm supposed to be there by seven—to meet the people I'm staying with, you know."

David had begun to use the whip vigorously, but now he hesitated and looked pained. "I am sorry to hear it's a theatre you want to get to," said he gravely.

"Why, do you think them such sinks of iniquity—is that it?" asked the girl, laughing.

"I never was in a theatre in my life, Missy; I don't approve of them, my dear."

"No more do I—no more do I! But when you're staying with people you can't always be your own boss, now can you?"

"You could with us, Missy."

"Well, that's bully; but I can't with these folks. They're regular terrors for the theatre, the folks I'm staying with now, and I don't know what they'll say if I keep 'em waiting long. Think you can do it?"

"Not by seven; but I think we might get there between five and ten minutes past."

"Thank God!"

Mr. Teesdale wrinkled his forehead, but said nothing. Evidently it was of the first importance that Missy should not keep her friends waiting. Of these people, however, she had already spoken so lightly that David was pleased to fancy her as not caring very much about them. He was pleased, not only because they took her to the theatre, but because he wanted no rival Australian friends for his old friend's child; the farm, if possible, must be her only home so long as she remained in the Colony. When, therefore, the girl herself confirmed his hopes the very next time she opened her mouth, the old man beamed with satisfaction.

"These folks I'm staying with," said Missy—"I'm not what you call dead nuts on 'em, as I said before."

"I'm glad to hear it," chuckled David, "because we want you all to ourselves, my dear."

"So you think! Some day you'll be sorry you spoke."

"Nonsense, child. What makes you talk such rubbish? You've got to come and make your home with us until you're tired of us, as I've told you already. Where is it they live, these friends of yours?"

"Where do they live?" repeated Missy. "Oh, in Kew."

"Ah—Kew."

The name was spoken in a queer, noticeable tone, as of philosophic reflection. Then the farmer smiled and went on driving in silence; they were progressing at a good speed now. But Missy had looked up anxiously.

"What do you know about Kew?" said she.

"Not much," replied David, with a laugh; "only once upon a time I had a chance of buying it—and had the money too!"

"You had the money to buy Kew?"

"Yes, I had it. There was a man who took me on to a hill and showed me a hollow full of scrub and offered to get me the refusal of it for an old song. I had the money and all, as it happened, but I wasn't going to throw it away. The place looked a howling wilderness; but it is now the suburb of Kew."

"Think of that. Aren't you sorry you didn't buy it?"

"Oh, it makes no difference."

"But you'd be so rich if you had!"

"I should be a millionaire twice over," said the farmer, complacently, as he removed his ruin of a top-hat to let in the breeze upon his venerable pate. Missy sat aghast at him.

"It makes me sick to think of it," she exclaimed. "I don't know what I couldn't do to you! If I'd been you I'd have cut my throat years ago. To think of the high old time you could have had!"

"I never had that much desire for a high old time," said Mr. Teesdale with gentle exaltation.

"Haven't I, then, that's all!" cried his companion in considerable excitement. "It makes a poor girl feel bad to hear you go on like that."

"But you're not a poor girl."

Missy was silenced.

"Yes, I am," she said at last, with an air of resolution. It was not, however, until they were the better part of a mile nearer Melbourne.

"You are what?"

"A poor girl."

"Nonsense, my dear. I wonder what your father would say if he heard you talk like that."

"He's got nothing to do with it."

"Not when he's worth thousands, Missy?"

"Not when he's thousands of miles away, Mr. Teesdale."

Mr. Teesdale raised his wrinkled forehead and drove on. A look of mingled anxiety and pain aged him years in a minute. Soon the country roads were left behind, and the houses began closing up on either side of a very long and broad high road. It was ten minutes to seven by Mr. Teesdale's watch when he looked at it again. It was time for him to say the difficult thing which had occurred to him two or three miles back, and he said it in the gentlest tones imaginable from an old man of nearly seventy.

"Missy, my dear, is it possible" (so he put it) "that you have run short of the needful?"

"It's a fact," said Missy light-heartedly.

"But how, my dear, have you managed to do that?"

"How? Let's see. I gave a lot away—to a woman in the steerage—whose husband went and died at sea. He died of dropsy. I nursed him, I did. Rather! I helped lay him out when he was dead. But don't go telling anybody—please."

Mr. Teesdale had shuddered uncontrollably; now, however, he shifted the reins to his right hand in order to pat Missy with his left.

"You're a noble girl. You are that! Yet it's only what I should have expected of their child. I might ha' known you'd be a noble girl."

"But you won't tell anybody?"

"Not if you'd rather I didn't. That proves your nobility! About how much would you like, my dear, to go on with?"

"Oh, twenty pounds."

Mr. Teesdale drew the breeze in through the broken ranks of his teeth.

"Wouldn't—wouldn't ten do, my dear?"

"Ten? Let's think. No, I don't think I could do with a penny less than twenty. You see, a wave came into the cabin and spoilt all my things. I want everything new."

"But I understood you had such a good voyage, Missy?"

"Not from me you didn't! Besides, it was my own fault: I gone and left the window open, and in came a sea. Didn't the captain kick up a shine! But I told him it was worse for me than for him; and look at the old duds I've got to go about in all because! Why, I look quite common—I know I do. No; I must have new before I come out to stay at the farm."

"I'm sure our Arabella dresses simple," the farmer was beginning; but Missy cut him short, and there was a spot of anger on each of her pale cheeks as she broke out:

"But this ain't simple—it's common! I had to borrow the most of it. All my things were spoilt. I can't get a new rig-out for less than twenty pounds, and without everything new——"

"Nay, come!" cried old David, in some trouble. "Of course I'll let you have anything you want—I have your father's instructions to do so. But—but there are difficulties. It's difficult at this moment. You see the banks are closed, and—and—-"

"Oh, don't you be in any hurry. Send it when you can; then I'll get the things and come out afterwards. Why, here we are at Lonsdale Street!"

"But I want you to come out soon. How long would it take you to get everything?"

"To-day's Thursday. If I had it to-morrow I could come out on Monday."

"Then you shall have it to-morrow," said David, closing his lips firmly. "Though the banks are closed, there's the man we send our milk to, and he owes me a lump more than twenty pound. I'll go to him now and get the twenty from him, or I'll know the reason why! Yes, and I'll post it to you before I go back home at all! What address must I send it to, Missy?"

"What address? Oh, to the General Post Office. I don't want the folks I am staying with to know. They offered to lend me, and I wouldn't. Will you stop, please?"

"Quite right, my dear, quite right. I was the one to come to. You'll find it at the——"

"Do you mind stopping?"

"Why, we're not there yet. We're not even in Bourke Street."

"No, but please stop here."

"Very well. Here we are, then, and it's only six past. But why not drive right on to the theatre—that's what I want to know?"

Missy hesitated, and hesitated, until she saw the old man peering into her face through the darkness that seemed to have fallen during the last five minutes. Then she dropped her eyes. They had pulled up alongside the deep-cut channel between road-metal and curb-stone, whereby you shall remember the streets of Melbourne. Nobody appeared to be taking any notice of them.

"I see," said David very gently. "And I don't wonder at it. No, Missy, it's not at all the sort of turn-out for your friends to see you in. Jump down, my dear, and I'll just drive alongside to see that nothing happens you. But I won't seem to know you, Missy—I won't seem to know you!"

Lower and lower, as the old man spoke, the girl had been hanging her head; until now he could see nothing of her face on account of her fringe; when suddenly she raised it and kissed his cheek. She was out of the buggy next moment.

She walked at a great rate, but David kept up with her by trotting his horse, and they exchanged signals the whole way. Close to the theatre she beckoned to him to pull up again. He did so, and she came to the wheel with one of her queer, inscrutable smiles.

"How do you know," said she, "that I'm Miriam Oliver at all?"

The rays from a gas-lamp cut between their faces as she looked him full in the eyes.

"Why, of course you are!"

"But how do you know?"

"Nay, come, what a question! What makes you ask it, Missy?"

"Because I've given you no proof. I brought an introduction with me and I went and forgot to give it to you. However, here it is, so you may as well put it in your pipe and smoke it."

She took some letters out of her pocket as she spoke, and shifted the top one to the bottom until she came to an envelope that had never been through the post. This she handed up to David, who recognised his old friend's writing, which indeed had caught his eye on most of the other envelopes also. And when she had put these back in her pocket she held out her dirty-gloved hand.

"So long," she said. "You won't know me when I turn up on Monday."

"Stop!" cried David. "You must let me know when to send the buggy for you, and where to. It'll never do to have you coming out in the 'bus again."

"Right you are. I'll let you know. So long again—and see here. I think you're the sweetest and trustingest old man in the world!"

She was far ahead, this time, before the buggy was under way again.

"Naturally," chuckled David, following her hair through the crowd. "I should hope so, indeed, when it's a child of John William Oliver, and one that you can love for her own sake an' all! But what made her look so sorry when she gave me the kiss? And what's this? Nay, come, I must have made a mistake!"

He had flattered himself that his eyes never left the portals where they had lost sight of the red hair, and when he got up to it what should it be but the stage door? The words were painted over it as plain as that. The mistake might be Missy's; but a little waiting by the curb convinced Mr. Teesdale that it was his own; for Missy never came back, as he argued she must have done if she really had gone in at the stage door.