“No, but it's there. I can feel it; and that old winking eye on Point Lonsdale is saying fifty nice things a minute. And I can smell the gum leaves—don't you tell me I can't, Tommy, just because your nose isn't tuned up to gum leaves yet!”
“Does it take long to tune a nose?” asked Tommy, laughing.
“Not a nice nose like yours.” Norah gave a happy little sigh. “Do you see that glow in the sky? That's the lights of Melbourne. I went to school near Melbourne, but I never loved it much; but somehow, it seems different now. It's all just shouting welcomes. And back of beyond that light is Billabong.”
“I want to see Billabong,” said the other girl. “I never had a home that meant anything like that—I want to see yours.”
“And I suppose you'll just think it's an ordinary, untidy old place—not a bit like the trim English places, where the woods look as though they were swept and dusted before breakfast every morning. I suppose it is all ordinary. But it has meant just everything I wanted, all my life, and I can't imagine its meaning anything less now.”
“And what about Homewood—the Home for Tired People?”
“Oh, Homewood certainly is lovely,” Norah said. “I like it better than any place in the world that isn't Billabong—and it was just wonderful to be able to carry it on for the Tired People: dad and I will always be thankful we had the chance. But it never was home: and now it's going to run itself happily without us, as a place for partly-disabled men, with Colonel Hunt and Captain Hardress to manage it. It was just a single chapter in our lives, and now it is closed. But we're—all of us—parts of Billabong.”
Some one came quietly along the deck and to the vacant place on her other side.
“Who's talking Billabong again, old kiddie?” Jim Linton's deep voice was always gentle. Norah gave his shoulder a funny little rub with her head.
“Ah, you're just as bad as I am, so you needn't laugh at me, Jimmy.”