A Little Bush Maid

The party had for some time been walking near the creek, so close to it that it was within sound, although they seldom got a glimpse of water, save where the ti-tree scrub on th...

Lunch over, everyone seemed disinclined for action. The boys lay about on the grass, sleepily happy. Norah climbed into a tree, where the gnarled boughs made a natural arm-chair...

They were sitting on the verandah in the stillness of an autumn evening, watching the shadows on the lawn become vague and indistinct, and finally merge into one haze of dusk. M...

“Well, I’m blessed!” said the captor at length, surveying the prize with his nose in the air. “A blooming old boot! Been there since the year one, I should think, by the look of...

The days went by, but no further word of the Winfield murderer came to the anxious ears of the little girl at Billabong homestead. Norah never read the papers, and could not the...

“Norah’s,” he said, in response to Jim’s lifted eyebrows. “Don’t know if she means to eat it in sections or not—it certainly doesn’t mean to go into my pocket as it is.” He desi...

Norah followed faithfully all Jim’s plans for her amusement. She practised, did some cooking, and helped Mrs. Brown preserve apricots; then there were the pets to look to and, b...

Two hammocks, side by side, under a huge pine tree, swung lazily to and fro in the evening breeze. In them Norah and Harry rocked happily, too comfortable, as Norah said, to tal...

Jim’s “bump on the head” luckily proved not very serious. A handkerchief, soaked in the creek by Wally, who rode there and back at a wild gallop, proved an effective bandage app...

Norah, meanwhile, had been feeling somewhat “out of things.” It was really more than human nature could be expected to bear that she should remain on the log with the three boys...

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...

“It’s my dear old friend Stephenson,” he said brokenly. “I told you about him. We thought he was dead—there was the body; I don’t understand, but this is he, and he’s alive, tha...

These were a numerous and varied band, and required no small amount of attention. Bobs, of course, came first—no other animal could possibly approach him in favour. But after Bo...

He brought a couple of mates with him—boys from New South Wales and Queensland, Harry Trevor and Walter Meadows. Harry was a little older than Jim—a short, thick-set lad, very f...

The Hermit had never regained consciousness throughout the weary hours during which every jolt of the express-wagon over the rough tracks had sent a throb to the hearts of the w...

“Not very.” The old housekeeper smiled at her. “Only when your Pa’s away I allers feels a bit nervis about you—sech thoughtless young people, an’ all them animals and snakes abo...

“I don’t know,” the other said hastily. “Can’t tell until Anderson comes. But I fancy it’s typhoid. You brought the things? Ah!” His eyes brightened as they fell on the leather...

Norah had dispensed afternoon tea with laborious energy, ably seconded by Dick, who carried cups and cake, and made himself generally useful. Then they had talked until the sun...