2
e".
The last touches had been given--tea put in the caddy, meat and butter in the safe, flowers in the vases. Mrs Hardacre, in her best gown, spread a festive supper-table, and Bill, her spouse, stood by with a Government launch to take the proud young husband to his wife, and to bring them back together.
Lily awaited him, trembling, tearful, wild with the joy of going home. Her step-mother had come to Sandridge to see her off, and had brought her a present of a macintosh, on the merits of which she dilated with fervour as she twirled it round and round.
"Buttons right down to the feet," she urged persuasively, "and cape hanging below the waist"--the second Mrs Harrison was a big woman. "You might go through a deluge in it. And so stylish, my dear! You can wear it when you go out in threatening weather of an afternoon, and be quite smart."
"Well, it's pretty threatening now," said Guthrie uneasily. "I don't know that it wouldn't be wiser--"
"Oh, no, no!" Lily implored. "No trains tonight! No way but this, Guthrie. I can't get wet--in this nice waterproof. I don't care how it blows--the more the better--with you with me."
"But baby?"
"We can keep him safe. He is going to be rolled in your 'possum rug. We can take him inside if it is cold. Oh, we MUST go by sea, Guthrie!"
"Call this sea?" he mocked.
It was sea to her, who had never been beyond the Heads. She expected to concentrate in the fifteen-minutes' trip across the bay the interest of years of travel on land. There was nothing like blue water to this sailor's wife, whose heart had been upon it for so many anxious months; the extravagance of her partiality was the joke of husband and friends against her.
"All right," said Guthrie; "come along, then!"
He was impatient to get her away from these people, and under his own roof.
The second-hand macintosh was again pressed upon her.
"Oh, thanks--thanks! But I think I won't put it on just yet, as it is not raining. My dress is