Project Gutenberg's Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land, by Rosa Praed

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Title: Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land

Author: Rosa Praed

Posting Date: June 29, 2009 [EBook #4051]
Release Date: May, 2003
First Posted: October 21, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY BRIDGET--NEVER-NEVER LAND ***

Produced by Col Choat. HTML version by Al Haines.

LADY BRIDGET IN THE NEVER-NEVER LAND.

by

Rosa Praed (1851-1935)

(1915)

CONTENTS

BOOK I FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF MRS GILDEA

BOOK II FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF LADY BRIDGET O'HARA

BOOK III FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF COLIN MCKEITH AND OTHERS

BOOK I

FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF MRS GILDEA

CHAPTER 1

Mrs Gildea had settled early to her morning's work in what she called
the veranda-study of her cottage in Leichardt's Town. It was a
primitive cottage of the old style, standing in a garden and built on
the cliff--the Emu Point side--overlooking the broad Leichardt River.
The veranda, quite twelve feet wide, ran--Australian fashion--along the
front of the cottage, except for the two closed-in ends forming, one a
bathroom and the other a kind of store closet. Being raised a few feet
above the ground, the veranda was enclosed by a wooden railing, and
this and the supporting posts were twined with creepers that must have
been planted at least thirty years. One of these, a stephanotis, showed
masses of white bloom, which Joan Gildea casually reflected would have
fetched a pretty sum in Covent Garden, and, joining in with a
fine-growing asparagus fern, formed an arch over the entrance steps.
The end of the veranda, where Mrs Gildea had established herself with
her type-writer and paraphernalia of literary work, was screened by a
thick-stemmed grape-vine, which made a dapple of shadow and sunshine
upon the boarded floor. Some bunches of late grapes--it was the very
beginning of March--hung upon the vine, and, at the other end of the
veranda, grew a passion creeper, its great purple fruit looking like
huge plums amidst its vivid green leaves.

The roof of the veranda was low, with projecting eaves,