Mrs Gildea had settled early to her morning's work in what she called the veranda-study of her cottage in Leichardt's Town.

It was a primitive cottage of the old style, standing in a garden and built on the cliff--the Emu Point side--overlooking the broad Leichardt River.
The veranda, quite twelve feet wide, ran--Australian fashion--along the front of the cottage, except for the two closed-in ends forming, one a bathroom and the other a kind of store closet.

Being raised a few feet above the ground, the veranda was enclosed by a wooden railing, and this and the supporting posts were twined with creepers that must have been planted at least thirty years.

One of these, a stephanotis, showed masses of white bloom, which Joan Gildea casually reflected would have fetched a pretty sum in Covent Garden, and, joining in with a fine-growing asparagus fern, formed an arch over the entrance steps.
The end of the veranda, where Mrs Gildea had established herself with her type-writer and paraphernalia of literary work, was screened by a thick-stemmed grape-vine, which made a dapple of shadow and sunshine upon the boarded floor.

Some bunches of late grapes--it was the very beginning of March--hung upon the vine, and, at the other end of the veranda, grew a passion creeper, its great purple fruit looking like huge plums amidst its vivid green leaves.
The roof of the veranda was low, with projecting eaves, below which a bunch of yellowing bananas hung to ripen.