Page 8 - A Little Bush Maid

To Norah the stables were the heart of Billabong. The house was all very
well--of course she loved it; and she loved her own little room, with its red

carpet and dainty white furniture, and the two long windows that looked out
over the green plain. That was all right; so were the garden and the big

orchard, especially in summer time! The only part that was not "all right"
was the drawing-room--an apartment of gloomy, seldom-used splendour
that Norah hated with her whole heart.

But the stables were an abiding refuge. She was never dull there. Apart

from the never-failing welcome in Bobs’ loose box, there was the dim,
fragrant loft, where the sunbeams only managed to send dusty rays of light
across the gloom. Here Norah used to lie on the sweet hay and think

tremendous thoughts; here also she laid deep plans for catching rats--and
caught scores in traps of her own devising. Norah hated rats, but nothing

could induce her to wage war against the mice. "Poor little chaps!" she said;
"they’re so little--and--and soft!" And she was quite saddened if by chance
she found a stray mouse in any of her shrewdly-designed traps for the

benefit of the larger game which infested the stables and had even the
hardihood to annoy Bobs!

Norah had never known her mother. She was only a tiny baby when that
gay little mother died-- a sudden, terrible blow, that changed her father in a

night from a young man to an old one. Tt was nearly twelve years ago, now,
but no one ever dared to speak to David Linton of his wife. Sometimes

Norah used to ask Jim about mother--for Jim was fifteen, and could
remember just a little; but his memories were so vague and misty that his
information was unsatisfactory. And, after all, Norah did not trouble much.

She had always been so happy that she could not imagine that to have had a
mother would have made any particular difference to her happiness. You

see, she did not know.

She had grown just as the bush wild flowers grow--hardy, unchecked,

almost untended; for, though old nurse had always been there, her nurseling
had gone her own way from the time she could toddle. She was everybody’s

pet and plaything; the only being who had power to make her stern, silent
father smile--almost the only one who ever saw the softer side of his