ment, while recognising the
urgent need for action. He must go as soon as possible, of course; but
he could not depart suddenly without a reason, and to give the reason
would be to give himself away to Alice Urquhart. Besides, a day's
outing had been planned on purpose for him; the possibilities in
connection with it were enormous; and five days of his leave were
unexpended still. He must think it over. He must have advice. So, as a
first instalment of duty, he scrawled a recklessly affectionate letter,
full of gratitude to her who had been his good genius and the guardian
angel of his boy. He did not disguise his envy of the general merchant,
whose vows of love could not have excelled in fervent expression the
good wishes of the writer for the happiness of the betrothed pair. He
hoped to have the pleasure of seeing his dear old friend on the
following day, or the day after that at latest; and he promised himself
the satisfaction of squandering his saved pay on such a wedding present
as would at least cover the cost of the bread and milk the boy had
devoured at her expense. Guthrie dropped his letter in the post-bag
while they were calling to him that it was time to start. And he turned
the key of silence upon his secret until he could pour it into the
right ear.

It was a wonder he did not pour it into Mary's, for she drove him to
Bundaboo, and nobody could have been more sympathetic than she. She was
the virtual mother of the family, who loved children, and she was
not--she could not be--a husband-hunter; a sensible man in domestic
difficulties could not have sought a wiser confidante. Yet he resisted
stubbornly all her gentle invitations to confide. In the first place,
he did not want to go with her in the pony-carriage, while Deb and
Dalzell rode. He did not like to see it taken for granted, as it seemed
to be by all, that a sailor on horseback must necessarily make a fool
of himself; the slight to his self-respect was enough to dull the edge
of his joy in the general merchant's proceedings--for, as the reader
will remember, he was still but three-and-twenty.

He had to weigh down the springs of a little basket thing no better
than an invalid's wheel-chair, and see the young exquisite, whom he
could have tossed over his shoulder with one hand, show off feats of
fancy horsemanship to make Deb's dark eyes kindle. Mr Pennycuick had
carelessly asked Billy's degenerate son to "school a bit" a creature
which for weeks h