agoon.

Neither plain nor lagoon formed altogether pleasing objects of
contemplation just now, for they spoke eloquently of the threatened
drought. When Lady Bridget had come up a bride, the plain had been
fairly green. The sandal-wood blossoms were out and wild flowers
plentiful. The lagoon was then flush with the grass, and its water, on
which white, pink and blue lilies floated, had reflected the vegetation
at its edge. Now the lagoon had shrunk and the water in the gully was
in places a mere trickle. Of course, the trees were there--ti-tree,
flooded gum, and so forth--but they looked brown and ragged. One
standing by itself, a giant white cedar, which in spring was a mass of
white and mauve bloom and in winter of scarlet berries, had a wide
strip of brown mud between it and the water that had formerly laved its
roots.

Lady Bridget had thought that the rocky gully, the lagoon and the vast
plain made as pretty a landscape as she had ever seen, when she had
first looked upon it in the early morn after her homecoming. Now, as
she paced up and down the veranda--for she was in a restless mood--her
mind went back to that bridal homecoming. They had not arrived at the
head-station till after dusk, but it had been visible from the plain a
long way off, and she had examined it with ardent curiosity through her
field-glasses in the clear light of sunset.

She had seen a collection of rough buildings backed by the forest, and
from different points of view, as they drew nearer, had made out that
the three principal ones formed three sides of a square. Two of
these--the side wings--were old and of primitive construction--slab
walls, bark roofs, and low verandas, overgrown with creepers. Colin
explained that these were the Old Humpey--as he called the original
dwelling house--and the kitchen and store building opposite. Lately,
the New House had been put up at right angles with the old buildings,
and fronting the plain. It had been begun before his trip south and
practically finished during his absence. Colin was very proud of the
New House.

It was made of sawn wood and had a high-pitched roof of corrugated
zinc, turned to gold by the sunset rays upon it. There was a deep
veranda all round the New House, and it was much taller than the wings,
being raised on blood-wood piles, that had been tarred to keep off
white ants, and with a flight of wooden steps leading up to the veranda.

The details of Moongarr head-station becam