42 BUSH DAYS 



morning guests, which is customary at home, leaves you, and 

 you look forward with delight to the visitors who, you know, 

 will be the best part of your meal. 



Quite early this morning, while the dew still spangled the 

 grass and leaf tips, we took our bag and billy, and set out for 

 our bush dining-room. Such a lovely room it is, with its blue 

 ceiling overhead, its soft grey walls, and a carpet of the 

 freshest, greenest velvet, that out-rivals the finest Axminster. 

 On one side the walls are draped with a curtain of royal 

 purple, where the hardenbergia hangs in loops and clusters ; 

 here and there great golden masses of dillwynia stand in nooks 

 and corners, while right where our table is laid tall blue 

 orchids wave fairy flowers upon their slender stems. The 

 rugged boughs of the red gum overhead stretch a bold design 

 against the blue of the ceiling, and throw cool, quaint shadows 

 over the velvet carpet ; and the brown, crusty loaf, the pot of 

 yellow butter, the red-cheeked apples, and the hard-boiled eggs 

 look very inviting in the flickering gleams. 



The thread of blue smoke, stealing up from the fire where 

 the billy is boiling, has evidently told our friends that we are 

 there, for they soon begin to arrive. First come the thrushes 

 in a great state of excitement ; indeed so agitated are they, 

 that we guess there is a nest in the hole of the old grey gum 

 .just beyond our breakfast-room, but we are too comfortably 

 indolent to go and look. But Mr. Thrush is more inquisitive, 

 and wants to know all about us. "Who, who, who, w/i0-are- 



