It was yet early in the day. Miss Neuchamp, being put into possession of the best bedroom, hastily arranged for her use and benefit, was told to consider herself as the sole occupant of the cottage for the present. Mr. Neuchamp in the meanwhile having ordered lunch, went over to the barracks to see if Mr. Banks had returned. He had been sent upon an embassy of great importance and diplomatic delicacy: no less, indeed, than to prevail upon Mrs. Abraham Freeman to permit her eldest daughter, Tottie, a girl of seventeen, to come to Rainbar during the period of Miss Neuchamp’s stay, to attend upon that lady as housemaid, lady’s maid, and general attendant. He was empowered to make any reasonable promises to provide the girl with everything she might want, short of a husband, but to bring her up if it could possibly be done. For, of course, Ernest was duly sensible of the extreme awkwardness that would result from the presence of Miss Neuchamp—albeit a near relative—as the sole representative of womanhood at such an essentially bachelor settlement as Rainbar. Tottie Freeman, who had commenced to bloom in the comparatively desert air of Rainbar, was a damsel not altogether devoid of youthful charms. True, the unfriendly sun, the scorching blasts, together with the culpable disuse of veil or bonnet, had combined to embrown what ought to have been her complexion, and, worse again, to implant such a crop of freckles upon her face, neck, and arms, that she looked as if a bran-bag had been shaken over her naturally fair skin. Now that we have said the worst of her, it must be admitted that her figure was very good, well developed, upright, and elastic. She could run as fast as any of her brothers, carrying a tolerable weight, and (when no one was looking) vault on her ambling mare, which she could ride with or without a saddle over range or river, logs, scrub, or reed-beds, just as well as they could. She could intimidate a half-wild cow with a roping pole, and milk her afterwards; drive a team on a pinch, and work all day in the hot sun. With all this there was nothing unfeminine or unpleasing to the eye in the bush maiden. Quite the contrary, indeed. She was a handsome young woman as regards features, form, and carriage. Cool and self-possessed, she was by no means as reckless of speech as many better educated persons of her sex; and though she liked a little flirtation—‘which most every girl expex’—there was not a word to be said to her detriment ‘up or down the river,’ which comprehended the whole of her social system.