er anywhere. He was a big
pony, very dark bay in colour, and "as handsome as paint," and with the
kindest disposition; full of life and "go," but without the smallest
particle of vice. It was an even question which loved the other best,
Bobs or Norah. No one ever rode him except his little mistress. The pair
were hard to beat--so the men said.

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. It 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.