r to town, and let her make her
curtsy at Government House, and do all the correct things--"

Some one slipped a hand through his arm.

"But when we've done them, daddy," said Norah cheerfully, "there will
always be Billabong to go home to!"

CHAPTER X

BILLABONG

"Will it be fine, Murty?"

The person addressed made no answer for a moment, continuing to stare
at the western horizon with his eyes wrinkled and his face anxious. He
turned presently; a tall, grizzled man, with the stooping shoulders
and the slightly bowed legs that are the heritage of those who spend
nine-tenths of their time in the saddle.

"Sorra a one of me knows," he said. "It's one of thim unchancy days that
might be annything. Have ye looked at the glass?"

"It's mejum," replied the first speaker. She was a vast woman, with a
broad, kindly face, lit by shrewd and twinkling blue eyes, dressed, as
was her custom, in a starched blue print, with a snowy apron. "Mejum
only. But I don't feel comferable at that there bank of clouds, Murty."

"I'd not say meself it was good," admitted Murty O'Toole, head stockman
on the Billabong run. He looked again at the doubtful sky, and then back
to Mrs. Brown. "Have ye no corns, at all, that 'ud be shootin' on ye if
rain was coming?"

"Corns I 'ave, indeed," said Mrs. Brown, with the sigh of one who admits
that she is but human. "But no--they ain't shootin' worth speakin'
about, Murty. Nor me rheumatic knee ain't givin' tongue, as Master Jim
would say."

"Yerra, that's all to the good," said the stockman, much cheered. "I'll
not look at the ould sky anny longer--leastways, not till I have that
cup of tea ye were speakin' about."

"Come in then," said Mrs. Brown, leading the way into the kitchen--a
huge place so glittering with cleanliness and polish that it almost hurt
the eye. "Kettle's boilin'--I'll have it made in a jiffy. No, Murty,
you will not sit on that table. Pounds of bath-brick 'ave gone into me
tables this last week."

"Ye have them always that white I do not see how ye'd want them to be
whiter," remarked Murty, gazing round him. "But I niver see anything to
aiqual the shine ye have on them tins an' copper. And the stove is that
fine it's a shame to be cookin' with it." He looked with respect at the
black satin and silver of the stove, where leaping flames glowed redly.
"Well, I'll always say there isn't a heartsomer place to come into than
the Billabong kitchen. And isn't it the littl