a bit," said Norah--"thanks to Brownie."

"My dear child," said her father, slightly irritated--"you've no idea
of what a fairly big English house means, apart from housekeeping and
managing. We shall need a really good housekeeper as well as a cook;
and goodness knows how many maids under her. You see the thing has
got to be done very thoroughly. If it were just you and the boys and
me you'd cook our eggs and bacon and keep us quite comfortable. But
it will be quite another matter when we fill up all those rooms with
Tired People."

"I suppose so," said Norah meekly. "But I can be useful, Daddy."

He patted her shoulder.

"Of course you can, mate. I'm only afraid you'll have too much to do.
I must say I wish Brownie were here instead of in Australia."

"Dear old Brownie, wouldn't she love it all!" said Norah, her eyes
tender at the thought of the old woman who had been nurse and mother,
and mainspring of the Billabong house, since Norah's own mother had
laid her baby in her kind arms and closed tired eyes so many years
ago. "Wouldn't she love fixing the house! And how she'd hate cooking
with coal instead of wood! Only nothing would make Brownie
bad-tempered."

"Not even Wal and I," said Jim. "And I'll bet we were trying enough
to damage a saint's patience. However, as we can't have Brownie, I
suppose you'll advertise for some one else, Dad?"

"Oh, I suppose so--but sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,"
returned Mr. Linton. "I've thought of nothing but this inheritance of
Norah's all day, and I'm arriving at the conclusion that it's going to
be an inheritance of something very like hard work!"

"Well, that's all right, 'cause there shouldn't be any loafers in
war-time," Norah said. She looked out of the window. "The rain is
stopping; come along, everybody, and we'll go down Regent Street on a
'bus." To do which Norah always maintained was the finest thing in
London.

They went down to see Norah's inheritance two days later. A quick
train from London dropped them at a tiny station, where the
stationmaster, a grizzled man apparently given over to the care of
nasturtiums, directed them to Homewood. A walk of a mile along a wide
white road brought them to big iron gates, standing open, beside a
tiny lodge with diamond-paned windows set in lattice-work, under
overhanging eaves; and all smothered with ivy out of which sparrows
fluttered busily. The lodgekeeper, a neat woman, looked at the