“Me!” said Brownie, visibly shuddering at the prospect. “Gettin’ letters’ll be all we’ll have to look forward to, Miss Norah, my dear—but when it comes to writing them, it’s another thing. I never was ’andy at the pen, as you know. In my day our mothers thought a sight more of making us ’andy about the house and with a cooking-stove. Girls is very different nowadays. Even Mary and Sarah, though goodness knows I’ve done me best with them.”
“Oh, they’re quite good girls,” said Mr. Linton. “They should be, too, after the years you’ve trained them.”
“And they’ll write and say all you want if you’re tired, Brownie darling,” Norah put in.
“I dunno,” said Brownie, despondently, “I’m stupid enough writing myself, but I’d be stupider yet dealing with a—what is it, Mr. Jim dear, when it’s someone as writes for you? Something about ham.”
“Amanuensis?” hazarded Jim.
“Yes, that’s it. No, I’ll have to do my own letters, an’ they’ll be bad enough. You’ll have to excuse them, dearie.”
“The only thing I wouldn’t excuse would be not getting them,” Norah answered. “I’ve had them whenever I was away at school, and you know I can’t do without them, Brownie. Why, you tell me things no one else even thinks of. And I’ll want home letters more than ever when I’m really away from Australia. It was bad enough when I was at school; but to be as far away from Billabong as England——” Norah stopped expressively.
“You’ll have all I can send you, my precious,” said Brownie tearfully. “I s’pose it’s no good for me to make up a hamper now and then? Me plum-cakes’ll keep a year!”
“I only wish it were,” said Jim. “Your hampers have brightened my life from my youth up, Brownie—not that I ever gave one of your cakes a chance to keep three days! But I expect we’ll have to wait until we come home again. One thing’s quite certain, we’ll all be ready for your cooking when we come back.”
“Bless his heart!” said Brownie. It was plain that comforting visions of a culinary orgie of welcome were already materialising in her mind. “It’ll be a great day for the station when we get you all again—and be sure you bring Mr. Wally too. I’ll have pikelets ready for you, Mr. Wally!”