Fifty-Two Stories For Girls Part 58

"Your affectionate aunt, "CAROLINE GRIEVES."

Kate's face was a study when she had finished reading the letter.

Surprise she certainly felt, and a little amus.e.m.e.nt, too, to think that she--an Australian bush-born girl--could not look after herself and her affairs without an English aunt and an English cousin travelling many thousands of miles across the water to aid her with their advice.

Hadn't she been for the last three years her father's right hand in the store, and in the shearing-shed, too, for that matter? Didn't she understand thoroughly how the books were kept? For this very reason her father, knowing full well that the complaint from which he suffered would sooner or later cause his death, had kept her cognisant of how the station should be managed. And now these English relatives were leaving their beautiful English home to give her advice upon matters that they were totally ignorant of!

Kate sat down with the letter in her hand and laughed. Then she looked sober. It would after all be pleasant to see some of her own relatives, not one of which--either on her dead mother's or her father's side--did she possess in Australia.

Yes, after all, the idea, on closer investigation, did not seem at all disagreeable, and Kate took up the letter again and read it with pleasure this time.

Even if she had wished to put a stop to the intended visit, she could not have had time, for three weeks later she received the cablegram:

"_We are leaving by the steamer Europia._"

She really felt a thrill of joy as she read this. She could now calculate upon the day they were likely to arrive. The days flew fast enough, for Kate had not time to sit down and dream over the appearance of the travellers. The "boss" was wanted everywhere, and she must needs know the why and wherefore of matters pertaining to account-books, shearing sheds, cattle-yards, stores, and everything relating to the homestead.

"It is good you were born with your father's business head," said Phil Wentworth, with a scarcely concealed look of admiration.

He was the manager of the station at Watakona. Mr. Hamilton had chosen him five years before to be his representative over the shearing-shed and stores, finding him after that length of time fully capable of performing all and more than was expected of him. He was a good-looking young man of thirty, with a bright, cheery manner, that had a good effect upon those employed at the station.

"Not a grumble from one of the men has ever been heard since Wentworth came here as manager," Kate's father had often said to her. "So different from that rascal Woods, who treated some of the men as if they were dogs, and allowed many a poor sheep to go shorn to its pen cut and bleeding from overhaste, with never a word of remonstrance."

And Kate bore that in mind, as also some of her father's last words:

"Don't ever be persuaded to part with Wentworth. He is far and away the best man I have ever had for the business."

At last the day came when Mrs. Grieves and her daughter Cicely arrived at Watakona.

There was a comical smile on the manager's good-looking face as trunk after trunk was lifted down off the waggon, and Kate's aunt announced that "there was more to come."

"More to come!" answered Kate, surprised. And then, bursting into a laugh, "Dear aunt, what can you have brought that will be of any use to you in this out-of-the-way place?"

Mrs. Grieves smilingly nodded her head. "There is not one trunk there that I could possibly do without."

And Kate, with another smile, dismissed the subject.

But not so her aunt. When they were all seated together after a comfortable tea, she began in a whisper, looking round cautiously first to see that no one was within hearing:

"You are curious, Kate dear, to know what those trunks contain?"

"My curiosity can stay, aunt. I am only afraid that what you have brought will be of no use to you. You see, I live such a quiet life here, with few friends and fewer grand dresses, that I fear you will be disappointed at not being able to wear any of the things you have brought."

Cicely, a pretty, delicate-looking girl, laughed merrily.

"They do not hold dresses, Kate. No, I have not thought to lead a gay life on a sheep station in Australia. What I have brought is something that I could not bear to leave behind. Those trunks contain all the silver I used to use in my English home."

"Silver! What kind of silver?"

"Teapots, cream ewers, epergnes, candlesticks, to say nothing of the spoons, forks, fish-knives, etc.," said Cicely gaily.

"You've brought all those things with you here?" cried Kate, horrified.

"Oh, aunt, where can I put them all for safety?"

Mrs. Grieves looked nonplussed. "I suppose you have some iron safes----"

she began.

"But not big enough to store that quant.i.ty of silver!"

Kate spent a restless night. Visions of bushrangers stood between her and sleep. What would she do with that silver?

"Bank it," suggested Phil Wentworth the next morning, as she explained her difficulty to him in the little counting-house after breakfast.

Kate shook her head. "Aunt wouldn't do it. If she did she might as well have banked it in England."

The manager pulled his moustache. "How much is there?"

"I haven't seen it, but from what Cicely says I should say there are heaps and heaps."

"Foolish woman," was the manager's thought, but he wisely kept it to himself.

When, however, the silver was laid before her very eyes, and piece after piece was taken from the trunks, ranged alongside one another in Mrs.

Grieves's bedroom, Kate's heart failed her.

"Mr. Wentworth must see it and advise me," was all she could say. And her aunt could not deter her.

Kate's white brow was puckered into a frown, and her pretty mouth drooped slightly at the corners as she watched Mr. Wentworth making his inspection of the silver. She knew his face so well, she could tell at one glance that he was thinking her aunt an exceedingly foolish woman, and Kate was not quite sure that she did not agree with him.

However, the silver was there, and they had to make the best of it, for Mrs. Grieves utterly rejected the idea of having it conveyed to a bank in Sydney.

"The only thing to do," said the manager gloomily, turning to Kate, "is to place it under the trap-door in the counting-house."

Kate looked questioningly at him. He half smiled.

"I think that the only thing you are not aware of in the business is the fact that the flooring of the counting-house can be converted at will into a strong lock-up. Come, and I will show you."

The three women followed him. To Cicely's English eyes the entire homestead was a strangely delightful place.

Rolling to one side the matting that covered the floor of the counting-house, Mr. Wentworth paused, and introducing a lever between the joining of two boards upheaved a square trap-door, revealing to the eyes of the astonished English ladies, and the no less astonished Australian "boss," a wide, gaping receptacle, suitable for the very articles under discussion.

It looked dark and gloomy below, but on the manager's striking a wax match and holding it aloft, they were enabled each one to descend the short ladder which the opening of the flooring revealed. Beneath the counting-house Kate found to her amazement a room quite as large as the one above it, furnished with chairs, a table, and a couple of stout iron safes. Upon the table stood an old iron candlestick into which Mr.

Wentworth inserted a candle lighted from his wax match.

"You never told me," were Kate's reproachful words, and still more reproachful glance.

"I tell you now," he said lightly. "There was no need to before. Your father showed it me when I had been here a year. Indeed, he and I often forgot that the counting-house had been built for a double purpose,--but that was because there was nothing to stow away of much value. Now I think we have just the hiding-place for all that silver."

It was indeed the place, the very place, and under great secrecy the silver was conveyed through the trap-door, and firmly locked into the iron safes.