Norah’s home was on a big station in the north of Victoria—so largethat you could almost, in her own phrase, “ride all day and never see anyone you didn’t want to see”; which was a great advantage inNorah’s eyes. Not that Billabong Station ever seemed to the little girl aplace that you needed to praise in any way. It occupied so very modest aposition as the loveliest part of the world!
The homestead was built on a gentle rise that sloped gradually away on everyside; in front to the wide plain, dotted with huge gum trees and great grey boxgroves, and at the back, after you had passed through the well-kept vegetablegarden and orchard, to a long lagoon, bordered with trees and fringed with tallbulrushes and waving reeds.
The house itself was old and quaint and rambling, part of the old wattle anddab walls yet remaining in some of the outhouses, as well as the grey shingleroof. There was a more modern part, for the house had been added to from timeto time by different owners, though no additions had been made sinceNorah’s father brought home his young wife, fifteen years before thisstory opens. Then he had built a large new wing with wide and lofty rooms, andround all had put a very broad, tiled verandah. The creepers had had time totwine round the massive posts in those fifteen years, and some even lay ingreat masses on the verandah roof; tecoma, pink and salmon-coloured; purplebougainvillea, and the snowy mandevillea clusters. Hard-headed people said thiswas not good for the building—but Norah’s mother had planted them,and because she had loved them they were never touched.
There was a huge front garden, not at all a proper kind of garden, but a greatstretch of smooth buffalo grass, dotted with all kinds of trees, amongst whichflower beds cropped up in most unexpected and unlikely places, just as if somegia