CHAPTER I



BILLABONG


Norah's home was on a big station in the north of Victoria--so large
that you could almost, in her own phrase, "ride all day and never see
any one you didn't want to see"; which was a great advantage in Norah's
eyes. Not that Billabong Station ever seemed to the little girl a place
that you needed to praise in any way. It occupied so very modest a
position as the loveliest part of the world!

The homestead was built on a gentle rise that sloped gradually away on
every side; in front to the wide plain, dotted with huge gum trees and
great grey box groves, and at the back, after you had passed through the
well-kept vegetable garden and orchard, to a long lagoon, bordered with
trees and fringed with tall bulrushes and waving reeds.

The house itself was old and quaint and rambling, part of the old wattle
and dab walls yet remaining in some of the outhouses, as well as the
grey shingle roof. There was a more modern part, for the house had been
added to from time to time by different owners, though no additions had
been made since Norah's father brought home his young wife, fifteen
years before this story opens. Then he had built a large new wing with
wide and lofty rooms, and round all had put a very broad, tiled
verandah. The creepers had had time to twine round the massive posts in
those fifteen years, and some even lay in great masses on the verandah