"I wonder who she is and what she wants to see Mr. Grainger for?" she said excitedly, as she mopped her florid face: "doesn't know him, and yet wants to see him particularly. There is something mysterious about her."

"What is she like?" asked Miss Trappeme eagerly. "I didn't see her face, but her clothes are all right, I can tell you." (She knew all about clothes, having been a forewoman in a Sydney drapery establishment for many years.)

"Oh, a little, common-looking thing, but uppish. I wonder what on earth she _does_ want to see Mr. Grainger for?"

Half an hour later, when Miss Carolan's luggage arrived, it was duly inspected and criticised by the whole Trappeme family. Each trunk bore a painted address: "Miss Carolan, Minerva Downs, Dalrymple, North Queensland."

"Now where in the world is Minerva Downs?" said Mrs. Trappeme, "and why on earth is she going there? And her name too--Carolan--Sheila Carolan!

I suppose she's a Jewess."

"Indade, an' it's not that she is, ma'am, whatever it manes,"

indignantly broke in Mary, who had helped to carry in the luggage, and now stood erect with flaming face and angry eyes. "Sure an' I tould yez she was a lady, an' anny wan cud see she was a lady, an' Carolan is wan av the best names in Ireland--indade it is."

"You may leave the room, Mary," said Miss Trappeme loftily.

"Lave the room, is it, miss? Widout maning anny disrespect to yez, I might as well be telling yez that I'm ready to lave the place intirely, an' so is the cook an' stableman, an' the gardener. Sure none av us--having been used to the gintry--want to sthay in a place where we do be getting talked at all day."

The prospect of all her servants leaving simultaneously was too awful for Mrs. Trappeme to contemplate. So she capitulated.

"Don't be so hasty, Mary. I suppose, then, that Miss Carolan is an Irishwoman?"

"She is that, indade. Sore an' her swate face toold me so before she spoke to me at all, at all."

"Then you must look after her wants yery carefully, Mary. She will only be here for a few weeks."

Mary's angry eyes softened. "I will that ma'am. Sure she's a sweet young lady wid the best blood in her, I'm thinkin'."

Miss Trappeme sniffed.

CHAPTER VIII ~ MYRA AND SHEILA

There was nothing mysterious about Sheila Carolan; her story was a very simple one. Her parents were both dead, and she had no relatives, with the exception of an aunt, and with her she had lived for the last five years. The two, however, did not agree very well, and Sheila being of a very independent spirit, and possessing a few hundred pounds of her own, frankly told her relative that she intended to make her own way in the world. There was living in North Queensland a former great friend of her mother's--a Mrs. Farrow, whose husband was the owner of a large cattle station near Dalrymple--and to her she wrote asking her if she could help her to obtain a situation as a governess. Six weeks later she received a warmly worded and almost affectionate letter.

"My dear Sheila,--Why did you not write to me long, long ago, and tell me that you and your Aunt Margaret did not get on well together! I remember as a girl that she was somewhat 'crotchetty.' I am not going to write you a long letter. _I want you to come to us_. Be my children's governess--and I really do want a governess for them--but remember that you are coming to your mother's friend and schoolmate, and that although you will receive 100 a year--if that is too little let us agree for 160--it does not mean that you will be anything else to me but the daughter of your dear mother.

Now I must tell you that Minerva Downs is a difficult place to reach, and that you will have to ride all the way from Townsville--250 miles--but that will be nothing to an Australian-born girl 'wid Oirish blood in her.' When you get to Townsville call on Mr. Mallard, the editor of the _Champion_, who is a friend of ours (I've written him), and he will 'pa.s.s' you on to another friend of ours, a Mr.

Grainger, who lives at a mining town called c.h.i.n.kie's Flat, ninety miles from here, and Mr. Grainger (don't lose your heart to him, and defraud my children of their governess) will 'pa.s.s' you on with the mailman for Minerva Downs. The enclosed will perhaps be useful (it is half a year's salary you advance), and my husband and _all_ my large and furious family of rough boys and rougher girls will be delighted to see you.

"Very sincerely yours, my dear Sheila,

"n.o.ba Fabbow."

With the letter was enclosed a cheque for 50 on a Sydney bank.

As the girl descended Melton Hill into hot, dusty, and noisy Flinders Street, she smiled to herself as she thought how very much she had stimulated the curiosity of Mrs. Trappeme--to whom she had, almost unconsciously, taken an instinctive dislike.

As she entered the crowded vestibule of the Royal Hotel, a group of men--diggers, sugar planters, storekeepers, bankers, ship captains, and policemen, who were all laughing hilariously at some story which was being told by one of their number--at once made a lane for her to approach the office, for ladies--especially young and pretty ladies--were few in comparison to the men in North Queensland in those days, and a murmured whisper of admiration was quite audible to her as she made her inquiry of the clerk.

"No; Mr. Mallard is with Mr. and, Miss Grainger at the 'Queen's.' He left here a few minutes ago."

"May I show you the way, miss?" said a huge bearded man, who, booted and spurred, took off his hat to her in an awkward manner. "I'm d.i.c.k Scott, one of Mr. Grainger's men."

"Thank you," replied Sheila, "it is very kind of you," and, escorted by the burly digger, she went out into the street again.

"Are you Miss Caroline, ma'am?" said her guide to her respectfully, as he tried to shorten his lengthy strides.

"Yes, my name is Carolan," she replied, trying to hide a smile.

"Thought so, ma'am. I heerd the boss a-tellin' Miss Grainger as you would be a-comin' to c.h.i.n.kie's on yer way up ter Minervy Downs. Here's the 'Queen's,' miss, an' there's the boss and his sister and Mr.

Mallard on the verandah there havin' a cooler," and then, to her amus.e.m.e.nt and Grainger's astonishment, Mr. d.i.c.k Scott introduced her.

"This is Miss Caroline, boss. I picked her up at the 'Royal,'" and then, without another word, he marched off again with a proud consciousness of having "done the perlite thing."

"I am Sheila Carolan, Mr. Grainger. I was at the 'Royal 'asking for Mr.

Mallard when Mr. Scott kindly brought me here."

"I am delighted to meet you, Miss Carolan," said Grainger, who had risen and extended his hand. "I had not the slightest idea you had arrived."

And then he introduced her to his sister and Mallard.

"Now, Miss Carolan, please let me give you a gla.s.s of this--it is simply lovely and cold," said Myra, pouring some champagne into a gla.s.s with some crashed ice in it. "My brother is the proad possessor of a big but rapidly diminishing lump of ice, which was sent to him by the captain of the _Corea_ just now."

"Thank you, Miss Grainger. I really am very thirsty. I have had quite a lot of walking about to-day. I have a letter to you, Mr. Mallard, from Mrs. Farrow," and she handed the missive to him.

"I am so very sorry I did not know of your arrival, Miss Carolan," said Mallard. "I would have met you on board, but, as a matter of fact, I did not expect you in the _Corea_, as she is a very slow boat."

"I was anxious to get to Mrs. Farrow," Sheila explained, "and so took the first steamer."

"Where are you staying, Miss Carolan?" asked Myra.

"Oh, I've been very fortunate. I have actually secured a room at 'Magnetic Villa,' on Melton Hill; in fact I went there just after you had left."

Myra clapped her hands with delight. "Oh, how lovely! I shall be there for a week, and my brother and Mr. Mallard are staying there as well."

"So Mrs. Lee Trappeme informed me," said Sheila with a bright smile.

Mallard--an irrepressible joker and mimic--at once threw back his head, crossed his hands over his chest, and bowed in such an exact imitation of Mrs. Trappeme that a burst of laughter followed.

"Now you two boys can run away and play marbles for a while, as Miss Carolan and I want to have a little talk before we go to the 'refined family circle' for dinner," said Myra to her brother. "It is now six o'clock; our luggage has gone up, and so, if you will come back for us in half an hour, we will let you escort us there--to the envy of all the male population of this horrid, dusty, noisy town."

"Very well," said Grainger with a laugh, "Mallard and I will contrive to exist until then," and the two men went off into the billiard-room.

"Now, Miss Carolan," said the lively Myra, as she opened the door of the sitting-room and carried in the table on which were the gla.s.ses, champagne bottle, and ice, "we'll put these inside first. The sight of that ice will make every man who may happen to see it and who knows Ted come and introduce himself to me. Oh, this is a very funny country! I'm afraid it rather shocked you to see me drinking champagne on an hotel verandah in full view of pa.s.sers-by. But, really, the whole town is excited--it has gold-fever on the brain--and then all the men are so nice, although their free and easy ways used to astonish me considerably at first. But diggers especially are such manly men---you know what I mean."

"Oh, quite. I know I shall like North Queensland. There were quite a number of diggers on board the _Carea_, and one night we held a concert in the saloon and I sang 'The Kerry Dance'--I'm an Irishwoman--and next morning a big man named O'Hagan, one of the steerage pa.s.sengers, came up and asked me if I would 'moind acceptin' a wee bit av a stone,' and he handed me a lovely specimen of quartz with quite two ounces of gold in it. He told me he had found it on the Shotover River, in New Zealand.

I didn't know what to say or do at first, and then he paid me such a compliment that I fairly tingled all over with vanity. 'Sure an' ye'll take the wee bit av a stone from me, miss,' he said. 'I'm a Kerry man meself, an' when I heard yez singin' "The Kerry Dance," meself and half a dozen more men from the oold sod felt that if ye were a man we'd have carried yez around the deck in a chair."

"How nice of him!" said Myra; "but they are all like that. Nearly every one of my brother's men at c.h.i.n.kie's Flat gave me something in the way of gold specimens when I left there."