"Come in--'twas yourselves we were talking about," Jim said, rising
slowly from the armchair; a process which, Norah was accustomed to say,
he accomplished yard by yard. "Sit here, Tommy, and let's hear your
views on Australia!"
Tommy shook her head.
"Too soon to ask me--and I've only seen Billabong," she said, laughing.
"Wait until I've kept house for Bob for a while, and faced life without
nice soft buffers like Norah and Mrs. Brown!"
"I'm not a nice soft buffer!" said Norah indignantly. "Do I look like
one, Jimmy?"
"Brownie certainly fits the description better," Jim said. "Never mind,
old girl, you'll probably grow into one. We'd be awfully proud of you if
you got really fat, Norah."
"Then I hope you'll never have cause for pride," retorted his sister.
"I couldn't ride Bosun if I did, and that would be too awful to think
about. Oh, and Tommy's making a great stock-rider, Bob. She declared she
could never ride astride, but she's perceiving the error of her ways."
"I thought I could never stick on without the moral support of the
pommels," said Tommy. "When you arrange yourself among pommels and horns
and things on a side-saddle, there seems no real reason why you should
ever come off, except of your own free will. But a man's saddle doesn't
offer any encouragement to a poor scared new-chum. I pictured myself
sliding off it whenever the horse side-stepped.
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