"Kettle's boilin'--I'll have it made in a jiffy. No, Murty,
you will not sit on that table. Pounds of bath-brick 'ave gone into me
tables this last week."
"Ye have them always that white I do not see how ye'd want them to be
whiter," remarked Murty, gazing round him. "But I niver see anything to
aiqual the shine ye have on them tins an' copper. And the stove is that
fine it's a shame to be cookin' with it." He looked with respect at the
black satin and silver of the stove, where leaping flames glowed redly.
"Well, I'll always say there isn't a heartsomer place to come into than
the Billabong kitchen. And isn't it the little misthress that thinks
so?"
"Bless her, she was always in and out of it from the time she could
toddle," said Mrs. Brown, pausing with the teapot in her hand. "And
she wasn't much more than toddlin' before she was at me to teach her
to cook. When she was twelve she could cook a dinner as well as anyone
twice her age. I never see the beat of her--handy as a man out on the
run, too--"
"She was that," said Murty solemnly. "Since she was a bit of a thing I
never see the bullock as could get away from her. And the ponies she'd
ride! There was nothin' ever looked through a bridle that cud frighten
her."
"Poof! Miss Norah didn't know what it was to be afraid," said Mrs.
Brown, filling the huge brown teapot. "Sometimes I've wished she was,
for me heart's been in me mouth often and often when I see her go
caperin' down the track on some mad-'eaded pony.
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