G. ESSEX EVANS.
Billabong homestead lay calm and peaceful in the slanting rays of the
sum that crept down the western sky. The red roofs were half hidden in
the surrounding trees--pine and box and mighty blue gums towering above
the tenderer green of the orchard, and the wide-flung tendrils of the
Virginia creeper that was pushing slender fingers over the old walls.
If you came nearer, you found how the garden rioted in colour under the
touch of early summer, from the crimson rambler round the eastern bay
window to the "Bonfire" salvia blazing in masses on the lawn; but from
the paddocks all that could be seen was the mass of green, and the
mellow red of the roof glimpsing through. Further back came a glance of
rippled silver, where the breeze caught the surface of the lagoon--too
lazy a breeze to do more than faintly stir the reed-fringed water.
Towards it a flight of black swans winged slowly, with outstretched
necks, across a sky of perfect blue. Their leader's note floated down,
as if in answer to the magpies that carolled in the pine trees by the
stables. The sound seemed to hang in the still air.
Beyond the tennis-court, in the farther recesses of the garden, a
hammock swung between two grevillea trees, whose orange flowers made a
gay canopy overhead; and in the hammock Norah swayed gently, and
knitted, and pondered.
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