Australian Tales - Setis

after attending to his horse's wants for the day, and sundry other
indispensable duties, he began to dress himself with extraordinary care;
and when he had completed his toilet, he looked thoroughly satisfied
with himself. His worsted cord trousers were faultlessly clean; his red
plush vest was as bright as a king parrot's plumage; his velveteen jacket
was as sleek as his horse Billy's black coat; and when he stuck his bran
new cabbage-tree hat on the back of his head, so as not to hide his honest
face, he looked a likely lad to smite the heart of any milk-maid in the
world. After breakfast he took another look at himself in the glass,
combed his hair down smooth and straight, stuck a flower in his buttonhole,
then put on his hat again, a trifle inclined to the left side, and off he
set for Syllabub Swamp, with a quick step and a hopeful heart.
Phoebe had returned from the early morning calls on her friends in
town, and was busy at her toilet, with flushed face and fluttering heart,
when Jonathan arrived at her house. Very soon she emerged from her
chamber, in her best attire, and shily welcomed her admiring swain, who
remarked that it was “a foine morning;” at the same time he mentally
remarked, that “she was the finest maid he had ever ventured to look at;
as much superior to Dolly Daysel, as a spring cauliflower is to a common
curly cabbage.”
After giving some final directions to her father, her brother Bob, and to
the maid in the kitchen, Phoebe opened her sky-blue parasol and said she
was quite ready. Away they went side by side, like Darby and Joan, and
half-an-hour afterwards they were on board a smart little steamer, which
was fast paddling up the Parramatta River.
“Be's this Kissing Point, Phoebe?” asked Jonathan, when the steamer
had moored alongside a jetty, about seven miles from Sydney.
“No, Jonathan,” said Phoebe, “this is Bedlam Point. The next one is
Kissing Point; a famous place for fruit.”
“I'll trouble you for your fare, if you please,” said a tall, good-looking
man, just then stopping before Jonathan, with a blue ticket-book in his
hand. “Are you going to Ryde?”
“Noa, I be going for a walk, as soon as I get ashore at Kissing Point,
captain, thank'ee all the same.”
A comical smile played about the mouth of the merry looking captain,
as he handed a couple of tickets, and at the same time explained to
Jonathan that Kissing Point is now generally called Ryde, being a more
fashionable name.
“I loike the owld name better than the new 'un, captain, a moighty deal;
and I believe the old 'un is more fashionable, after all. I'd a rayther walk
to Kissing Point any day, than ride on a thorough-bred racer, to any other
point you could tell of,” said Jonathan, with a laugh and a shy glance at
Phoebe, to see if she understood the point of his joke.
In ten minutes more they had landed at Ryde, in company with a