CHAPTER IX.
A BUSH HOUSE PARTY.
Tunimba was considered one of the most beautiful statons on the Luya. It was almost in the shadow of Mount Luya and of the twin peaks of the Burrum. Baròlin Gorge—a misty cleft—stretched up between the two into the dividing range, and seemed to Elsie's imagination the passage to a realm of mystery.
Mrs. Jem Hallett had the reputation of being a most accomplished hostess. She was always called Mrs. Jem, because the elder Mrs. Hallett, mother of the two brothers, was still alive and occupied a pretty cottage about a stone's throw from the big house. But the old lady was an invalid, and took no part in the domestic management of the station, leaving everything to her clever daughter-in-law. Mrs. Jem was very handsome—a little self-conscious, but that was hardly surprising. She had big black eyes and, unlike most Australians, a rich colour. She was tall also and elegant, and always dressed with great care and taste.
Nothing more unlike the Humpey could be imagined. Tunimba head-station was an imposing stone house with deep verandahs trellised with creepers, a beautifully kept garden, a gravelled courtyard, and beds planted with flowering shrubs and pomegranate trees and camellias. It had outbuildings after the newest and most improved pattern, stables, a retinue of smartly got up black boys and grooms, trim fences and white gates, and last, but greatest of all, a Chinese cook. The head station stood on a small hill, and the garden sloped down to a lagoon, as is the case in many Australian homesteads. Beyond the lagoon was the race-course, and on this particular occasion—the tenth anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Jem's wedding day—there were to be given some bush races—a sort of friendly competition among the horse-owners of the district, which was rather noted for its races and the horses they intended to run at the forthcoming Leichardt's Town Races.
