"Jem!"
"There I told you so. She see me come in here, and she's after me
because I haven't got on with my casks. Oh, how sharp she is!"
Jem gave Don an intelligent nod of the head, and moved out, while the
lad stood gazing at the opposite window and listened to the sharp voice
addressing the foreman of the yard.
"Poor Jem! He isn't happy either!" said Don, sadly, as the voices died
away. "We might go right off abroad, and they'd be sorry then and think
better of us. I wish I was ten thousand miles away."
He seated himself slowly on his stool, and rested his arms upon the
desk, folding them across his chest; and then, looking straight before
him at the door, his mental gaze went right through the panels, and he
saw silver rivers flowing over golden sands, while trees of the most
glorious foliage drooped their branches, and dipped the ends in the
glancing water. The bright sun shone overhead; the tendrils and waving
grass were gay with blossoms; birds of lovely plumage sang sweetly; and
in the distance, on the one hand, fading away into nothingness, were the
glorious blue mountains, and away to his right a shimmering sea.
Don Lavington had a fertile brain, and on the canvas of his imagination
he painted panorama after panorama, all bright and beautiful. There
were no clouds, no storms, no noxious creatures, no trials and dangers.
All was as he thought it ought to be, and about as different from the
reality as could be supposed. But Don did not know that in his youthful
ignorance, and as he sat and gazed before him, he asked himself whether
he had not better make up his mind to go right away.
"Yes, I will go!" he said, excitedly, as he started up in his seat.
"No," he said directly after, as in imagination now he seemed to be
gazing into his mother's reproachful eyes, "it would be too cowardly; I
could not go."