?

"Bobs is just lovelier than ever. I never knew him go so well as he is
now, and he perfectly loves a jump. Dad has a new horse he calls
Monarch, and he is a beauty, he is black with a star. OF COURSE, don't
say anything about Cecil's spill to anybody, he could not help it. And
he had a much bigger laugh at me, 'cause I fell into the lagoon the day
he came. I will tell you all about it when you come.

"The place is looking lovely, and hasn't dried up a bit--"

An unfamiliar step came along the passage, and Norah sat up abruptly
from the labours of composition, and then with promptness concealed her
letter under a cookery book.

"Why Cecil! How did you find your way here?"

"Oh--looked about me. I had finished my writing, and there was nothing
to do."

"I'm so sorry," Norah said contritely. "You see, Brownie's sick, and
I'm on duty here."

"You!" said Cecil, with a laugh. "And what can YOU do in a kitchen?"

Norah blushed at the laugh more than at the words.

"Oh, you'll get some sort of a dinner," she said. "Don't be too
critical, that's all."

"What, you really can cook? Or do you play at it?"

"Well, there are mighty few girls in the Bush who can't cook a bit,"
Norah said. "Of course we're lucky, having Brownie--but you really never
can tell as a rule when you may have to turn to in the kitchen. Dad
says it's one of the beauties of Australia!"

"Can't say I like the idea of a lady in the kitchen," quoth Cecil
loftily.

"Can't say I'd like to be one who was scared of it," Norah said. "And I
guess you'd get very bored if you had to go without your dinner!" She
seized a cloth and opened the oven door gingerly, and made highly
technical experiments with her cake, rising presently, somewhat
flushed. "Ten minutes more," she said, with an air of satisfaction.
"And, as Brownie would say, 'he's rose lovely.' Have some tea, Cecil?"

Cecil assented, and watched the small figure in the voluminous white
apron as she flitted about the kitchen.

"I like having tea here," Norah confided to him. "Then I use Brownie's
teapot, and don't you always think tea tastes miles better out of a
brown pot? You won't get the proper afternoon cups either--I hope you
don't mind?" She stopped short, with a sudden sense of talking a
language altogether foreign to this bored young man in correct attire;
and a rush of something like irritation to think how different Jim or
Wally would have been--she could almost see Wally sitting