Old Mrs. Storefield was pottering about in the garden with a big sun-bonnet on. She was a great woman for flowers.

“Come along in, Aileen, my dear,” she said. “Gracey’s in the dairy; she’ll be out directly. George only came home yesterday: Who be these you’ve got with ye? Why, Dick!” she says, lookin’ again with her sharp, old, grey eyes, “it’s you, boy, is it? Well, you’ve changed a deal too; and Jim too. Is he as full of mischief as ever? Well, God bless you, boys, I wish you well I wish you well. Come in out of the sun, Aileen; and one of you take the horses up to the stable. You’ll find George there somewhere,”

Aileen had jumped down by this time, and had thrown her rein to Jim, so we rode up to the stable, and a very good one it was, not long put up, that we could see. How the place had changed, and how different it was from ours! We remembered the time when their hut wasn’t a patch on ours, when old Isaac Storefield, that had been gardener at Mulgoa to some of the big gentlemen in the old days, had saved a bit of money and taken up a farm; but bit by bit their place had been getting better and bigger every year, while ours had stood still and now was going back.

Chapter XV

CHAPTER XV

George Storefield’s place, for the old man was dead and all the place belonged to him and Gracey, quite stunned Jim and me. We’d been away more than a year, and he’d pulled down the old fences and put up new ones—first-rate work it was, too; he was always a dead hand at splitting. Then there was a big hay-shed, chock-full of good sweet hay and wheat sheaves, and, last of all, the new stable, with six stalls and a loft above, and racks, all built of ironbark slabs, as solid and reg’lar as a church, Jim said.

They’d a good six-roomed cottage and a new garden fence ever so long. There were more fruit trees in the garden and a lot of good draught horses standing about, that looked well, but as if they’d come off a journey.

The stable door opens, and out comes old George as hearty as ever, but looking full of business.

“Glad to see you, boys,” he says; “what a time you’ve been away! Been away myself these three months with a lot of teams carrying. I’ve taken greatly to the business lately. I’m just settling up with my drivers, but put the horses in, there’s chaff and corn in the mangers, and I’ll be down in a few minutes. It’s well on to dinner-time, I see.”