A Little Bush Maid | Page 4

and when a wet day or the occasional absence of Mr. Linton left Norah without occupation, she induced her to begin a few elementary lessons. The child was quick enough, and soon learned to read fairly well and to write laboriously; but there nurse's teaching from books ended.
Of other and practical teaching, however, she had a greater store. Mr. Linton had a strong leaning towards the old-fashioned virtues, and it was at a word from him that Norah had gone to the kitchen and asked Mrs. Brown to teach her to cook. Mrs. Brown--fat, good-natured and adoring--was all acquiescence, and by the time Norah was eleven she knew more of cooking and general housekeeping than many girls grown up and fancying themselves ready to undertake houses of their own. Moreover, she could sew rather well, though she frankly detested the accomplishment. The one form of work she cared for was knitting, and it was her boast that her father wore only the socks she manufactured for him.
Norah's one gentle passion was music. Never taught, she inherited from her mother a natural instinct and an absolutely true ear, and before she was seven she could strum on the old piano in a way very satisfying to herself and awe-inspiring to the admiring nurse. Her talent increased yearly, and at ten she could play anything she heard--from ear, for she had never been taught a note of music. It was, indeed, her growing capabilities in this respect that forced upon her father the need for proper tuition for the child. However, a stopgap was found in the person of the book-keeper, a young Englishman, who knew more of music than accounts. He readily undertook Norah's instruction, and the lessons bore moderately good effect--the moderation being due to a not unnatural disinclination on the pupil's part to walk where she had been accustomed to run, and to a fixed loathing to practice. As the latter necessary, if uninteresting, pursuit was left entirely to her own discretion--for no one ever dreamed of ordering Norah to the piano--it is small wonder if it suffered beside the superior attractions of riding Bobs, rat trapping, "shinning up" trees, fishing in the lagoon and generally disporting herself as a maiden may whom conventional restrictions have never trammelled.
It follows that the music lessons, twice a week, were times of woe for Mr. Groom, the teacher. He was an earnest young man, with a sincere desire for his pupil's improvement, and it was certainly disheartening to find on Friday that the words of Tuesday had apparently gone in at one ear and out at the other simultaneously. Sometimes he would remonstrate.
"You haven't got on with that piece a bit!"
"What's the good?" the pupil would remark, twisting round on the music stool; "I can play nearly all of it from ear!"
"That's not the same"--severely--"that's only frivolling. I'm not here to teach you to strum."
"No" Norah would agree abstractedly. "Mr. Groom, you know that poley bullock down in the far end paddock--"
"No, I don't," severely. "This is a music lesson, Norah; you're not after cattle now!"
"Wish I were!" sighed the pupil. "Well, will you come out with the dogs this afternoon?"
"Can't; I'm wanted in the office. Now, Norah--"
"But if I asked father to spare you?"
"Oh, I'd like to right enough." Mr. Groom was young, and the temptress, if younger, was skilled in wiles.
"But your father--"
"Oh, I can manage Dad. I'll go and see him now." She would be at the door before her teacher perceived that his opportunity was vanishing.
"Norah, come back! If I'm to go out, you must play this first--and get it right."
Mr. Groom could be firm on occasions. "Come along, you little shirker!" and Norah would unwillingly return to the music stool, and worry laboriously though a page of the hated Czerny.
CHAPTER II

PETS AND PLAYTHINGS
After her father, Norah's chief companions were her pets.
These were a numerous and varied band, and required no small amount of attention. Bobs, of course, came first--no other animal could possibly approach him in favour. But after Bobs came a long procession, beginning with Tait, the collie, and ending with the last brood of fluffy Orpington chicks, or perhaps the newest thing in disabled birds, picked up, fluttering and helpless, in the yard or orchard. There was room in Norah's heart for them all.
Tait was a beauty--a rough-haired collie, with a splendid head, and big, faithful brown eyes, that spoke more eloquently than many persons' tongues. He was, like most of the breed, ready to be friends with any one; but his little mistress was dearest of all, and he worshipped her with abject devotion. Norah never went anywhere without him; Tait saw to that. He seemed always on the watch for her coming, and she was never more than a few yards from the