CHAPTER X.—THE THINNING OF THE ICE.

Old Teesdale sat with his arm-chair drawn close to the table, and his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He was writing a letter in which he had already remarked that it was the hottest Christmas Eve within even his experience of that colony. In the verandah, indeed, the thermometer had made the shade heat upwards of 100? since nine o'clock in the morning, touching 110? in the early afternoon. It was now about six (Mr. Teesdale being still without his watch was never positive of the time), and because of Mrs. T.'s theory that to open a window was to let in the heat, to say nothing of the flies, the atmosphere of the parlour with its reminiscences of the day's meals was sufficiently unendurable. A little smoke from Mr. Teesdale's pipe would surely have improved it if anything; but that was against the rules of the house, and the poor gentleman, who was not master of it, wrote on and on with the perspiration standing on his bald head, and the reek of the recent tea in his nose.

He was on the third leaf of a letter for the English mail. "As to Miriam herself"—thus the paragraph began which was still being penned—"I can only say that she is the life and soul of our quiet home, and what we shall do without her when she goes I really do not like to think. Referring again to the letter in which you advised me of her arrival, and to those 'habits and ways' of which you warned me, I cannot deny that I soon saw what you meant; but I must say that I would not have Miriam without her 'mannerisms' even if I could. They may be modern, but they are very entertaining indeed to us, who are so far behind the times. Yes, the young girls of our day may have talked less 'slang' and paid more attention to 'appearances,' but no girl ever had a warmer heart than your Miriam, nor a kinder nature, nor a franker way with her in all her dealings. But her kindness is what has struck me most, from the very first, and especially her kindness to an old man like me. You should see her sit and read to me by the hour, and help me with whatever little thing I may happen to be doing, and listen to my talk as though I were a young man like our John William. Then I think you would understand why I am always saying that she never could have been anybody's daughter but yours, and why I want to keep her as long as ever you will let her stay. She has spoken of going on to other friends after the New Year; but I wish you would insist upon her coming back to us for a real long visit before she leaves the colony for good; and I know that you would do so if you could but see the change which even a few weeks with us has already wrought in her. You must know, my dear Oliver, that we live here very simply indeed; but I am of opinion that simple living and early hours were what Miriam needed more than anything else, for it is no exaggeration to say that she does not look the same girl who first came to see us with your letter of introduction. She has a better colour, her whole face is brighter and healthier, and the tired look I at first noticed in her eyes has gone out of them once and——"

At this point Mr. Teesdale paused, pen in air.

He was a very careful letter-writer, who wrote a beautiful old-fashioned hand, and made provision for perfectly even spaces by means of a black-lined sheet nicely adjusted under the leaf; and he rounded each sentence in his own mind before neatly committing it to paper. Thus a single erasure was a great rarity in his letters, while two would have made him entirely rewrite. On the other hand, many a minute here and there were spent in peering through the gun-room window, and scouring the Dandinong Ranges for the right word; and now several minutes went thus in one lump, because Mr. Teesdale was by nature an even greater stickler for the literal truth than for flawless penmanship, and he had caught himself in the act of writing what was not strictly true. It was a fact that the tired look had gone out of Missy's eyes, but to add "once and for all" was to make the whole statement a lie, according to Mr. Teesdale's standard. For the last thirty-six hours that tired look had been back in those bright eyes, which brightened now but by fits and starts. David did not so define it, but the girl looked hunted. He merely knew that she did not look to-day or yesterday as she had looked for some weeks without a break, therefore he could not and would not say that she did. Accordingly the predicate of the unfinished sentence was radically altered until that sentence stood... "and the tired look I at first noticed in her eyes is to be seen in them but very seldom now."

But the erasure had occurred on the fifth page, on a new sheet altogether, which it was certainly worth while to commence afresh; and old Tees-dale had scarcely regained the point at which he had tripped when the door opened, and the subject of his letter was herself in the room beside him, looking swiftly about her, as if to make certain that he was alone, before allowing her eyes to settle upon his welcoming smile.

"Well, Missy, and what have you been doing with yourself since tea?"

"I?" said the girl absently, as she glanced into the gun-room, and then out of each window, very keenly, before sitting down on the sofa. "I? Oh, I've been having a sleep, that's what I've been doing."

Mr. Teesdale was watching her narrowly as he leant back in his chair. She did not look to him as though she had been sleeping; but that was of course his own fancy. On the other hand, the strange expression in Missy's eyes, which he could not quite define, struck the old man as stranger and more conspicuous than ever.

"I'm afraid, my dear, that you haven't been getting your proper sleep lately."

"You're right. There's no peace for the wicked these red-hot nights, let alone the extra wicked, like me."

"Get away with you!" said old Teesdale, laughing at the grave girl who was staring him in the face without the glimmer of a smile.

"Get away I will, one of these days; and glad enough you'll be when that day comes and you know all about me. I've always told you a day like that would come sooner or later. It might come to-morrow—it might come to-night!"

"Missy, my dear, I do wish you'd smile and show me you're only joking. Not that it's one of your best jokes, my dear, nor one of your newest either. Ah, that's it—that's better!"

She had jumped up to look once more out of the window: a man was passing towards the hen-yard, it was little Geordie, and Missy sat down smiling.

"Then tell me what it is you're busy with," she began in a different tone; an attempt at the old saucy manner which the farmer loved as a special, sacred perquisite of his own.

"Now you're yourself again! I'm writing a long, long letter, Missy. Guess who to?"

"To—to Mr. Oliver?"

"Mr. Oliver! Your father, my dear—your own father! Now guess what it's about, if you can!"

"About—me?"

David nodded his head with great humour.

"Yes, it's about you. A nice character I'm giving you, you may depend!"

"Are you saying that I'm a regular bad lot then?"

"Ah, that's telling!"

"If you were, you wouldn't be far from the mark, if you only knew it. But let's hear what you have said."

"Nay, come! You don't expect me to let you hear what I've said about you, do you, Missy?"

"Of course I do," said Missy firmly.

"But that would be queer! Nay, Missy, I couldn't show you this letter, I really couldn't. For one thing, it would either make you conceited or else very indignant with poor me!"

"So that's the kind of character you've been giving me, is it?" said Missy, smiling grimly. "Now I must see it."

"Nay, come, I don't think you must, Missy—I don't think you must!"

"But I want to."

So exclaiming, the girl rose resolutely to her feet; and her resolution settled the matter; for it will have been seen that the weak old man himself was all the time wishing her to see what he had written about her. After all, why should she not know how fond he was of her? If it made her ever such a little bit fonder of him, well, there surely could be no harm in that. Still, Mr. Tees-dale chose to walk up and down the room while Missy stood at the window to read his letter, for it was now growing dark.

"I see you mention that twenty pounds." Missy had looked up suddenly from the letter. "How was it you managed to get the money that night, after all? I have often meant to ask you."

Mr. Teesdale stopped in his walk. "What does it matter how I got them, honey? I neither begged, borrowed nor stole 'em, if that's what you want to know." The old gentleman laughed.

"I want to know lots more than that, because it matters a very great deal, when I went and put you to all that inconvenience."

"Well, I went to the man who buys all our milk. I told you I was going to him, didn't I?"

"Yes, but I've heard you say here at table that you haven't had a farthing from him these six months."

"Missy, my dear," remonstrated the old man, with difficulty smiling, "you will force me to ask you—to mind——"

"My own business? Right you are. What's the time?"

"The time!" The question did indeed seem irrelevant. "I'm sure I don't know, but I'll go and have a look at the kitchen——"

"Then you needn't. I don't really want to know. I was only wondering when John William would be back from Melbourne. But where's your watch?"

"Getting put to rights, my dear," said old Tees-dale faintly, with his eyes upon the carpet.

"What, still?"

"Yes; they're keeping it a long time, aren't they?"

"They are so," said Missy dryly. She watched the old man as he crossed the room twice, with his weak-kneed steps, his white hands joined behind him and his thin body bent forward. Then she went on reading his letter.

It affected her curiously. At the third page she uttered a quick exclamation; at the fourth she lowered the letter with a quick gesture, and stood staring at David with an expression at which he could only guess, because the back of her head was against the glass.

"This is too much," cried Missy in a broken voice. "I can never let you send this."

"And why not, my dear?" laughed Mr. Teesdale, echoing, as he thought, her merriment; for it was to this he actually attributed the break in her voice.

"Because there isn't a word of truth in it; because I haven't a warm heart nor a kind nature, and because I'm not frank in my dealings. Frank, indeed! If you knew what I really was, you wouldn't say that in a hurry!"

Mr. Teesdale could no longer suppose that the girl was in fun. Her bosom was heaving with excitement; he could see that, if he could not see her face. He said wearily:

"There you go again, Missy! I can't understand why you keep saying such silly things."

"I'm not what you think me. You understand that, don't you?"

"I hear what you say, but I don't believe a word of it."

"Then you must! You shall! I can't bear to deceive you a moment longer—I simply can't bear it when you speak and think of me like this. First of all, then, this letter's no good at all!"

In another instant that letter fluttered upon the floor in many pieces.

"You must forgive me," said Missy, "I couldn't help it; it wasn't worth the paper it was written on; and now I'm going to tell you why."

Old Teesdale, however, had never spoken, and this silenced the girl also, for the moment. But that moment meant a million. One more, and Missy would have confessed everything. She was worked up to it. She was in continual terror of an immediate exposure. Her better nature was touched and cauterised with shame for the sweet affection of which she had cheated this simple old man. She would tell him everything now and here, and the mercy that filled his heart would be extended to her because she had not waited to be unmasked by another. But she paused to measure him with her eye, or, perhaps, to take a last look at him looking kindly upon her. And in that pause the door opened, making Missy jump with fright; and when it was only Arabella who entered with the lighted kerosene lamp, Missy's eyes sped back to the old man's face in time to catch a sorrowful mute reproach that went straight to her palpitating heart. She stooped without a word to help him gather up the fragments of the torn letter.

She had no further opportunity of speaking that night; and supper would have been a silent meal but for what happened as they all sat at table. All, that night, did not include John William, who was evidently spending Christmas Eve in Melbourne. There was some little talk about him. David remarked that a mail would be in with the Christmas letters, and Missy was asked whether she had not told John William to call at the post office. She had not. During her sojourn at the farm she had only once been to the post office herself; had never sent; and had been told repeatedly she was not half anxious enough about her Home letters. They told her so now. Missy generally said it was because she was so happy and at-home with them; but tonight she made no reply; and this was where they were when there came that knock at the window which made Missy spill her cocoa and otherwise display a strange state of mind.

"Who is it?" she cried. "Who do you think it is?"

"Maybe some neighbour," said Mrs. T., "to wish us the compliments o' t' season."

"If not old Father Christmas himself!" laughed David to Missy, in the wish that she should forgive herself, as he had forgiven her, for tearing up his letter. But Missy could only stare at the window-blind, behind which the knock had been repeated, and she was trembling very visibly indeed. Then the front-door opened, and it was Missy, not one of the family, that rushed out into the passage to see who it was. The family heard her shouting for joy:

"It's John William. It's only John William after all. Oh, you dear, dear old Jack!"

Very quickly she was back in the room, and down on the horsehair sofa, breathing heavily. John William followed in his town clothes.

"Yes, of course it's me. Good evening, all. Who did you think it was, Missy?"

"I thought it was visitors. What if it had been? Oh, I hate visitors, that's all."

"Then I'm sorry to hear it," remarked Mrs. Teesdale sourly, "for we have visitors coming to-morrow."

"I hate 'em, too," said John William wilfully.

"Then I'll thank you to keep your hates to yourselves," cried Mrs. T. "It's very rude of you both. Your mother wouldn't have spoke so, Missy!"

"Wouldn't she!" laughed the girl. "I wonder if you know much about my mother? But after that I think I'll be off to bed. I am rude, I know I am, but I never pretended to be anything else."

This was fired back at them from the door, and then Missy was gone without saying good-night.

"She's not like her mother," said Mrs. T. angrily; "no, that she isn't!"

"But why in the name of fortune go and tell her so?" John William blurted out. "I never knew anything like you, mother; on Christmas Eve, too!"

"I think," said David gently, "that Missy is not quite herself. She has been very excitable all day, and I think it would have been better to have taken no notice of what she said. You should remember, my dear, that she is utterly unused to our climate, and that even to us these last few days have been very trying."

Arabella was the only one who had nothing at all to say, either for Missy or against her. But she went to Missy's room a little later, and there she spoke out:

"You thought it was—Stanborough! I saw you did."

"Then I did—for the moment. But it was very silly of me—I don't know what could have put him into my head, when I've settled him so finely for good and all!"

"God bless you, Missy! But—but do you think there is any fear of him coming back and walking right in like that?"

"Not the least. Still, if he did—if he did, mark you—I'd tackle him again as soon as look at him. So never you fear, my girl, you leave him to me."