awful. One of the lovely parts of getting Jim
again was to see the twinkle come back into Wally's eyes. You see, Wally
is practically all twinkle!"

"And when you get back to Australia, what will you all do?"

Norah had looked puzzled.

"Why, I don't know that we've ever thought of it," she said. "We'll just
all go to Billabong--we don't seem to think further than that. Anyway,
you and Bob are coming too--so we can plan it all out then."

Looking at her, on this last night of the voyage, Cecilia wondered
whether the unknown "Billabong" would indeed be enough, after the long
years of war. They had been children when they left; now the boys were
seasoned soldiers, with scars and honours, and such memories as only
they themselves could know; and Norah and her father had for years
conducted what they termed a "Home for Tired People," where broken and
weary men from the front had come to be healed and tended, and sent
back refitted in mind and body. This girl, who leaned over the rail and
looked at the Point Lonsdale light, had seen suffering and sorrow; the
mourning of those who had given up dear ones, the sick despair of young
and strong men crippled in the very dawn of life; and had helped them
all. Beside her, in experience, Cecilia felt a child. And yet the
old bush home, with its simple life and the pleasures that had been
everything to her in childhood, seemed everything to her now.

Cecilia went softly to her side, and Norah turned with a start.

"Hallo, Tommy!" she said, slipping her arm through the
new-comer's--Cecilia had become "Tommy" to them all in a very short
time, and her hated, if elegant, name left as a legacy to England. "I
didn't hear you come. Oh, Tommy, it's lovely to see home again!"

"You can't see much," said Tommy, laughing.

"No, but it's there. I can feel it; and that old winking eye on Point
Lonsdale is saying fifty nice things a minute. And I can smell the gum
leaves--don't you tell me I can't, Tommy, just because your nose isn't
tuned up to gum leaves yet!"

"Does it take long to tune a nose?" asked Tommy, laughing.

"Not a nice nose like yours." Norah gave a happy little sigh. "Do you
see that glow in the sky? That's the lights of Melbourne. I went to
school near Melbourne, but I never loved it much; but somehow, it seems
different now. It's all just shouting welcomes. And back of beyond that
light is Billabong."

"I want to see Billabong," said the other girl. "I never had a home