"Hold me, daddy! Doesn't it make you feel
light-headed to think of putting ten eggs in one cake again?"
"An' why not?" sniffed Brownie. "Ah, you got bad treatment in that old
England. I never could see why you should go short, an' you all 'elpin'
on the war as 'ard as you could." Brownie's indifference to national
considerations where her nurselings were concerned was well known, and
nobody argued with her. "Any'ow, the cake's there, an' just you try
it--it's as light as a feather, though I do say it."
Once in the kitchen Norah and the boys went no further. They remained
sitting on the tables, talking, while presently David Linton went away
to his study, and, one by one, Murty and Boone and Mick Shanahan drifted
in. There was so much to tell, so much to ask about; they talked until
the dusk of the short winter afternoon stole into the kitchen, making
the red flames in the stove leap more redly. It was time to dress for
tea. They went round the wide verandas and ran upstairs to their rooms,
while old Brownie stood in the kitchen doorway listening to the merry
voices.
"Ain't it just 'evinly to 'ear 'em again!" she uttered.
"It is that," said Murty. "We've been quare an' lonesome an' quiet these
five years."
CHAPTER XI
COLONIAL EXPERIENCES
Cecilia--otherwise Tommy--and Bob Rainham came up to Billabong three
days later, and were met by Jim, who had ridden into Cunjee with Black
Billy, and released the motor from inglorious seclusion in the local
garage.
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