small girl with lofty condescension, generally ended by voting her "no
end of a jolly kid," and according her the respect due to a person who
could teach them more of bush life than they had dreamed of.

But Norah's principal mate was her father. Day after day they were
together, riding over the run, working the cattle, walking through the
thick scrub of the backwater, driving young, half-broken horses in the
high dog-cart to Cunjee--they were rarely apart. David Linton seldom
made a plan that did not naturally include Norah. She was a wise little
companion, too; ready enough to chatter like a magpie if her father were
in the mood, but quick to note if he were not, and then quite content to
be silently beside him, perhaps for hours. They understood each other
perfectly. Norah never could make out the people who pitied her for
having no friends of her own age. How could she possibly be bothered
with children, she reflected, when she had Daddy?

As for Norah's education, that was of the kind best defined as a minus
quantity.

"I won't have her bothered with books too early," Mr. Linton had said
when nurse hinted, on Norah's eight birthday, that it was time she began
the rudiments of learning. "Time enough yet--we don't want to make a
bookworm of her!"

Whereat nurse smiled demurely, knowing that that was the last thing to
be afraid of in connexion with her child. But she worried in her
responsible old soul all the same; and when a wet day or the occasional
absence of Mr. Linton left Norah without occupation, she induced her to
begin a few elementary lessons. The child was quick enough, and soon
learned to read fairly well and to write laboriously; but there nurse's