Polly was so much a part of himself that he thought of her last of all.
But then it was with moist eyes. She, who had never complained, should
of a surety not come short! And he dropped asleep that night to the
happy refrain: "Now she shall have her piano, God bless her! . . . the
best that money can buy."
Part IV
Chapter I
The new house stood in Webster Street. It was twice as large as the old
one, had a garden back and front, a verandah round three sides. When
Mahony bought it, and the piece of ground it stood on, it was an
unpretentious weather-board in a rather dilapidated condition. The
situation was good though--without being too far from his former
address--and there was stabling for a pair of horses. And by the time
he had finished with it, it was one of those characteristically
Australian houses which, added to wherever feasible, without a thought
for symmetry or design--a room built on here, a covered passage there,
a bathroom thrown out in an unexpected corner, with odd steps up and
down--have yet a spacious, straggling comfort all their own.
How glad he was to leave the tiny, sunbaked box that till now had been
his home. It had had neither blind nor shutter; and, on his entering it
of a summer midday, it had sometimes struck hotter than outside. The
windows of his new room were fitted with green venetians; round the
verandah-posts twined respectively a banksia and a Japanese honey-suckle,
which further damped the glare; while on the patch of buffalo-grass
in front stood a spreading fig-tree, that leafed well and threw a
fine shade.
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