--eyes that bore marks of tears,
of which Norah for once was unashamed. Her brown curls were tied back
with a broad black ribbon. She was very slender--"skinny," Norah
would have said--but, despite that she was at what is known as "the
awkward age," no movement of Norah Linton's was ever awkward. She
moved with something of the unconcerned grace of a deer. In her blue
serge coat and skirt she presented the well-groomed look that was part
and parcel of her. She smiled at the two boys, a little tremulously.

"Hallo!" said her brother. "We didn't hear you--where did you spring
from?"

"Dad dropped me at the Corner--he had to go on to Harrods," Norah
answered. "I came across the grass, and you two were so busy talking
you didn't know I was there. I couldn't help hearing what you said,
Wally."

"Well, I'm glad you did," Wally answered, "But what do you think
yourself, Nor?"

"I was just miserable until I heard you," Norah said. "It seemed too
awful to take Sir John's house--to profit by his death. I couldn't
bear it. But of course you're right. I do think I was stupid--I read
his letter a dozen times, but I never saw it that way."

"But you agree with Wally, now?" Jim asked.

"Why, of course--don't you? I suppose I might have had the sense to
see his meaning in time, but I could only think of seeming to benefit
by his death. However, as long as one member of the family has seen
it, it's all right." She flashed a smile at Wally. "I'm just ever so
much happier. It makes it all--different. We were such--" her voice
trembled--"such good chums, and now it seems as if he had really
trusted us to carry on for him."

"Of course he did," Wally said. "He knew jolly well you would make
good use of it, and it would help you, too, when Jim was away."

"Jim?" said that gentleman. "Jim? What are you leaving yourself out
for? Aren't you coming? Got a Staff job at home?"

"I'm ashamed of you, Wally," said Norah severely. "Of course, if you
don't _want_ to belong----!" Whereat Wally Meadows flushed and
laughed, and muttered something unintelligible that nevertheless was
quite sufficient for his friends.

It was not a thing of yesterday, that friendship. It went back to
days of small-boyhood, when Wally, a lonely orphan from Queensland,
had been Jim Linton's chum at the Melbourne Grammar School, and had
fallen into a habit of spending his holidays at the Linton's big
station in the north of Victoria, unti