Page:The romance of Runnibede (IA romanceofrunnibe00rudd).pdf/77

They were as brothers, and always ready to help one another over the stile. Gad! how excited Ted and Dorothy and I were when we saw the Governor coming! Didn't we rush to greet him at the stable! You'd think he had been absent from home for a year or two. Of course, we knew he’d never think of returning from Brisbane, even if he had to walk and lead the horse, without bringing something or other for us. And this time his valise was heavily packed. We attached a lot of importance to that valise too. All of us wanted to carry it into the big house for him lest it might he forgotten, or some unseen person suddenly appear and run with it. And we all wanted to carry it at the same time— neither of us could trust the other with it. So the Governor himself, to some extent, settled our appre- hensions by saying "Let me!" and hoisted it up on to his shoulder. And, laws! when we had time to look at Warabah, what a swell he was! Tweed trousers and flaring red shirt, a flash belt, a new cabbage-tree hat covering his black head, and elastic side boots on his feet, with new spurs jangling on the heels of them.

"Lit' a Dor'ty," he called, grinning over his shoulder, as his long fingers tipped with nails ivory white got busy unbuckling the straps of his saddle pouch, before taking the saddle off his horse, "I bringa you some'ing this time." Oil of angels! What a bound Dorothy gave! And what a picture she made—-dancing all ronnd the stately black, her flowing brown hair and pink ribbons flying about her, commending him in all the terms of endearment