“Bah, you hideous animal! Ha ha! Your peerless conceit does you credit. So you actually imagined that by one or two out of every hundred you might be considered passable. You are the most uninteresting person in the world. You are small and nasty and bad, and every other thing that’s abominable. That’s what you are.”

This address I delivered to my reflection in the glass next morning. My elation of the previous night was as flat as a pancake. Dear, oh dear, what a fool I had been to softly swallow the flattery of Mr. Grey without a single snub in return! To make up for my laxity, if he continued to amuse himself by plastering my vanity with the ointment of flattery, I determined to serve up my replies to him red-hot and well seasoned with pepper.

I finished my toilet, and in a very what’s-the-good-o’-anything mood took a last glance in the glass to say, “You’re ugly, you’re ugly and useless; so don’t forget that and make a fool of yourself again.”

I was in the habit of doing this; it had long ago taken the place of a morning prayer. I said this, that by familiarity it might lose a little of its sting when I heard it from other lips, but somehow it failed in efficacy.

I was late for breakfast that morning. All the others were half through the meal when I sat down.

Grannie had not come home till after twelve, but was looking as brisk as usual.

“Come, Sybylla, I suppose this comes of sitting up too late, as I was not here to hunt you to bed. You are always very lively at night, but it’s a different tune in the morning,” she said, when giving me the usual morning hug.

“When I was a nipper of your age, if I didn’t turn out like greased lightning every morning, I was assisted by a little strap oil,” remarked uncle Jay-Jay.

“Sybylla should be excused this morning,” interposed Mr. Grey. “She entertained us for hours last night. Little wonder if she feels languid this morning.”

“Entertained you! What did she do?” queried grannie.

“Many things. Do you know, gran, that you are robbing the world of an artist by keeping Sybylla hidden away in the bush? I must persuade you to let me take her to Sydney and have her put under the best masters in Sydney.”

“Under masters for what?”

“Elocution and singing.”

“I couldn’t afford it.”

“But I’d bear the expense myself. It would only be returning a trifle of all you have done for me.”

“What nonsense! What would you have her do when she was taught?”

“Go on the stage, of course. With her talent and hair she would cause quite a sensation.”

Now grannie’s notions re the stage were very tightly laced. All actors and actresses, from the lowest circus man up to the most glorious cantatrice, were people defiled in the sight of God, and utterly outside the pale of all respectability, when measured with her code of morals.

She turned energetically in her chair, and her keen eyes flashed with scorn and anger as she spoke.

“Go on the stage! A granddaughter of mine! Lucy’s eldest child! An actress⁠—a vile, low, brazen hussy! Use the gifts God has given her with which to do good in showing off to a crowd of vile bad men! I would rather see her struck dead at my feet this instant! I would rather see her shear off her hair and enter a convent this very hour. Child, promise you will never be a bold bad actress.”

“I will never be a bold bad actress, grannie,” I said, putting great stress on the adjectives, and bringing out the actress very faintly.

“Yes,” she continued, calming down, “I’m sure you have not enough bad in you. You may he boisterous, and not behave with sufficient propriety sometimes, but I don’t think you are wicked enough to ever make an actress.”

Everard attempted to defend his case.

“Look here, gran, that’s a very exploded old notion about the stage being a low profession. It might have been once, but it is quite the reverse nowadays. There are, of course, low people on the stage, as there are in all walks of life. I grant you that; but if people are good they can be good on the stage as well as anywhere else. On account of a little prejudice it would be a sin to rob Sybylla of the brilliant career she might have.”

“Career!” exclaimed his foster-mother, catching at the word. “Career! That is all girls think of now, instead of being good wives and mothers and attending to their homes and doing what God intended. All they think of is gadding about and being fast, and ruining themselves body and soul. And the men are as bad to encourage them,” looking severely at Everard.

“There is a great deal of truth in what you say, gran, I admit. You can apply it to many of our girls, I am sorry to confess, but Sybylla could not be brought under that classification. You must look at her in a different way. If⁠—”

“I look at her as the child of respectable people, and will not have the stage mentioned in connection with her.” Here Grannie thumped her fist down on the table and there was silence, complete, profound. Few dared argue with Mrs. Bossier.

Dear old lady, she was never angry long, and in a minute or two she proceeded with her breakfast, saying quite pleasantly:

“Never mention such a subject to me again; but I’ll tell you what you can do. Next autumn, some time in March or April, when the fruit-preserving and jam-making are done with, Helen can take the child to Sydney for a month or so, and you can show them round. It will be a great treat for Sybylla as she has never been in Sydney.”

“That’s right, let’s strike a bargain on that, gran,” said Everard.

“Yes; it’s a bargain, if I hear no more about the stage. God intends His creatures for a better life than that.”

After breakfast I was left to entertain Everard for some while. We had a fine time. He was a perfect gentleman and a clever conversationalist.

I was always desirous of enjoying the company of society people who were well bred and lived according to etiquette, and possessed of leisure and culture sufficient to fill their minds with something more than the price of farm produce and a hard struggle for existence. Hitherto I had only read of such or seen them in pictures, but here was a real live one, and I seized my opportunity with vim. At my questioning and evident interest in his talk he told me of all the latest plays, actors, and actresses with whom he was acquainted, and described the fashionable balls, dinners, and garden-parties he attended. Having exhausted this subject, we fell to discussing books, and I recited snatches of poems dear to me. Everard placed his hands upon my shoulders and said:

“Sybylla, do you know you are a most wonderful girl? Your figure is perfect, your style refreshing, and you have a most interesting face. It is as ever-changing as a kaleidoscope⁠—sometimes merry, then stern, often sympathetic, and always sad when at rest. One would think you had had some sorrow in your life.”

Lifting my skirt at either side, I bowed several times very low in what I called my stage bow, and called into requisition my stage smile, which displayed two rows of teeth as white and perfect as any twenty-guinea set turned out on a gold plate by a fashionable dentist.

“The handsome gentleman is very kind to amuse himself at the expense of a little country bumpkin, but he would do well to ascertain if his flattery would go down before administering it next time,” I said sarcastically, and I heard him calling to me as I abruptly went off to shut myself in my room.

“How dare anyone ridicule me by paying idle brainless compliments! I knew I was ugly, and did not want anyone to perjure his soul pretending they thought differently. What right had I to be small? Why wasn’t I possessed of a big aquiline nose and a tall commanding figure?” Thus I sat in burning discontent and ill-humour until soothed by the scent of roses and the gleam of soft spring sunshine which streamed in through my open window. Some of the flowerbeds in the garden were completely carpeted with pansy blossoms, all colours, and violets-blue and white, single and double. The scent of mignonette, jonquils, and narcissi filled the air. I revelled in rich perfumes, and these tempted me forth. My ruffled feelings gave way before the delights of the old garden. I collected a number of vases, and, filling them with water, set them on a table in the veranda near one of the drawing-room windows. I gathered lapfuls of the lovely blossoms, and commenced arranging them in the vases.

Part of the old Caddagat house was built of slabs, and one of the wooden walls ran along the veranda side of the drawing-room, so the songs aunt Helen and Everard Grey were trying to the piano came as a sweet accompaniment to my congenial task.

Presently they left off singing and commenced talking. Under the same circumstances a heroine of a story would have slipped away; or, if that were impossible without discovery, she would have put her fingers in her ears, and would have been in a terrible state of agitation lest she should hear something not intended for her. I did not come there with a view to eavesdropping. It is a degradation to which I never stoop. I thought they were aware of my presence on the veranda; but it appears they were not, as they began to discuss me (wonderfully interesting subject to myself), and I stayed there, without one word of disapproval from my conscience, to listen to their conversation.

“My word, didn’t gran make a to-do this morning when I proposed to train Sybylla for the stage! Do you know that girl is simply reeking with talent; I must have her trained. I will keep bringing the idea before gran until she gets used to it. I’ll work the we-should-use-the-gifts-God-has-given-us racket for all it is worth, and you might use your influence too, Helen.”

“No, Everard; there are very few who succeed on the stage. I would not use my influence, as it is a life of which I do not approve.”

“But Sybylla would succeed. I am a personal friend of the leading managers, and my influence would help her greatly.”

“Yes; but what would you do with her? A young gentleman couldn’t take charge of a girl and bring her out without ruining her reputation. There would be no end of scandal, as the sister theory would only be nonsense.”

“There is another way; I could easily stop scandal.”

“Everard, what do you mean!”

“I mean marriage,” he replied deliberately.

“Surely, boy, you must be dreaming! You have only seen her for an hour or two. I don’t believe in these sudden attachments.”

Perhaps she here thought of one (her own) as sudden, which had not ended happily.

“Everard, don’t do anything rashly. You know you are very fickle and considered a lady-killer⁠—be merciful to my poor little Sybylla, I pray. It is just one of your passing fancies. Don’t wile her passionate young heart away and then leave her to pine and die.”

“I don’t think she is that sort,” he replied laughingly.

“No, she would not die, but would grow into a cynic and sceptic, which is the worst of fates. Let her alone. Flirt as much as you will with society belles who understand the game, but leave my country maiden alone. I hope to mould her into a splendid character yet.”

“But, Helen, supposing I am in earnest at last, you don’t think I’d make her a bad old hubby, do you?”

“She is not the girl for you. You are not the man who could ever control her. What I say may not be complimentary but it is true. Besides, she is not seventeen yet, and I do not approve of romantic young girls throwing themselves into matrimony. Let them develop their womanhood first.”

“Then I expect I had better hide my attractions under a bushel during the remainder of my stay at Caddagat?”

“Yes. Be as nice to the child as you like, but mind, none of those little ladies’-man attentions with which it is so easy to steal⁠—”

I waited to hear no more, but, brimming over with a mixture of emotions, tore through the garden and into the old orchard. Bees were busy, and countless bright-coloured butterflies flitted hither and thither, sipping from hundreds of trees, white or pink with bloom⁠—their beauty was lost upon me. I stood ankle-deep in violets, where they had run wild under a gnarled old apple-tree, and gave way to my wounded vanity.

“Little country maiden, indeed! There’s no need for him to bag his attractions up. If he exerted himself to the utmost of his ability, he could not make me love him. I’m not a child. I saw through him in the first hour. There’s not enough in him to win my love. I’ll show him I think no more of him than of the caterpillars on the old tree there. I’m not a booby that will fall in love with every gussie I see. Bah, there’s no fear of that! I hate and detest men!”

“I suppose you are rehearsing some more airs to show off with tonight,” sneered a voice behind me.

“No, I’m realisticing; and how dare you thrust your obnoxious presence before me when I wish to be alone! Haven’t I often shown⁠—”

“While a girl is disengaged, any man who is her equal has the right to pay his addresses to her if he is in earnest,” interrupted Mr. Hawden. It was he who stood before me.

“I am well aware of that,” I replied. “But it is a woman’s privilege to repel those attentions if distasteful to her. You seem disinclined to accord me that privilege.”

Having delivered this retort, I returned to the house, leaving him standing there looking the fool he was.

I do not believe in spurning the love of a blackfellow if he behaves in a manly way; but Frank Hawden was such a drivelling mawkish style of sweetheart that I had no patience with him.

Aunt Helen and Everard had vacated the drawing-room, so I plumped down on the piano-stool and dashed into Kowalski’s galop, from that into “Gaite de Coeur” until I made the piano dance and tremble like a thing possessed. My annoyance faded, and I slowly played that saddest of waltzes, “Weber’s Last.” I became aware of a presence in the room, and, facing about, confronted Everard Grey.

“How long have you been here?” I demanded sharply.

“Since you began to play. Where on earth did you learn to play? Your execution is splendid. Do sing ‘Three Fishers,’ please.”

“Excuse me; I haven’t time now. Besides I am not competent to sing to you,” I said brusquely, and made my exit.

“Mr. Hawden wants you, Sybylla,” called aunt Helen. “See what he wants and let him get away to his work, or your grannie will be vexed to see him loitering about all the morning.”

“Miss Sybylla,” he began, when we were left alone, “I want to apologize to you. I had no right to plague you, but it all comes of the way I love you. A fellow gets jealous at the least little thing, you know.”

“Bore me with no more such trash,” I said, turning away in disgust.

“But, Miss Sybylla, what am I to do with it?”

“Do with what?”

“My love.”

“Love!” I retorted scornfully. “There is no such thing.”

“But there is, and I have found it.”

“Well, you stick to it⁠—that’s my advice to you. It will be a treasure. If you send it to my father he will get it bottled up and put it in the Goulburn museum. He has sent several things there already.”

“Don’t make such a game of a poor devil. You know I can’t do that.”

“Bag it up, then; put a big stone to make it sink, and pitch it in the river.”

“You’ll rue this,” he said savagely.

“I may or may not,” I sang over my shoulder as I departed.

I had not the opportunity of any more private interviews with Everard Grey till one morning near his departure, when we happened to be alone on the veranda.

“Well, Miss Sybylla,” he began, “when I arrived I thought you and I would have been great friends; but we have not progressed at all. How do you account for that?”

As he spoke he laid his slender shapely hand kindly upon my head. He was very handsome and winning, and moved in literary, musical, and artistic society⁠—a man from my world, a world away.

Oh, what pleasure I might have derived from companionship with him! I bit my lip to keep back the tears. Why did not social arrangements allow a man and a maid to be chums⁠—chums as two men or two maids may be to each other, enjoying each other without thought beyond pure platonic friendship? But no; it could not be. I understood the conceit of men. Should I be very affable, I feared Everard Grey would imagine he had made a conquest of me. On the other hand, were I glum he would think the same, and that I was trying to hide my feelings behind a mask of brusquerie. I therefore steered in a beeline between the two manners, and remarked with the greatest of indifference:

“I was not aware that you expected us to be such cronies⁠—in fact, I have never given the matter a thought.”

He turned away in a piqued style. Such a beau of beaux, no doubt he was annoyed that an insignificant little country bumpkin should not be flattered by his patronage, or probably he thought me rude or ill-humoured.

Two mornings later uncle Jay-Jay took him to Gool-Gool en route for Sydney. When departing he bade me a kindly goodbye, made me promise to write to him, and announced his intention of obtaining the opinion of some good masters re my dramatic talent and voice, when I came to Sydney as promised by my grandmother. I stood on the garden fence waving my handkerchief until the buggy passed out of sight among the messmate-trees about half a mile from the house.

“Well I hope, as that dandified ape has gone⁠—and good riddance to him⁠—that you will pay more heed to my attentions now,” said Mr. Hawden’s voice, as I was in the act of descending from the fence.

“What do you mean by your attentions?” I demanded.

“What do I mean! That is something like coming to business. I’ll soon explain. You know what my intentions are very well. When I am twenty-four, I will come into my property in England. It is considerable, and at the end of that time I want to marry you and take you home. By Jove! I would just like to take you home. You’d surprise some English girls I know.”

“There would be more than one person surprised if I married you,” I thought to myself, and laughed till I ached with the motion.

“You infernal little vixen! What are you laughing at? You’ve got no more sense than a bat if such a solemn thing only provokes your mirth.”

“Solemn⁠—why, it’s a screaming farce!” I laughed more and more.

“What’s a farce?” he demanded fiercely.

“The bare idea of you proposing to me.”

“Why? Have I not as much right to propose as any other man?”

“Man!” I laughed. “That’s where the absurdity arises. My child, if you were a man, certainly you could propose, but do you think I’d look at a boy, a child! If ever I perpetrate matrimony the participant in my degradation will be a fully developed man⁠—not a hobbledehoy who falls in love, as he terms it, on an average about twice a week. Love! Ho!”

I moved in the direction of the house. He barred my path.

“You are not going to escape me like that, my fine lady. I will make you listen to me this time or you will hear more about it,” and he seized me angrily by the wrist.

I cannot bear the touch of anyone⁠—it is one of my idiosyncrasies. With my disengaged hand I struck him a vigorous blow on the nose, and wrenching myself free sprang away, saying, “How dare you lay a finger on me! If you attempt such a thing again I’ll make short work of you. Mark my words, or you’ll get something more than a bleeding nose next time, I promise you.”

“You’ll hear more of this! You’ll hear more of this! You fierce, wild, touch-me-not thing,” he roared.

“Yes; my motto with men is touch-me-not, and it is your own fault if I’m fierce. If children attempt to act the role of a man with adult tools, they are sure to cut themselves. Hold hard a bit, honey, till your whiskers grow,” I retorted as I departed, taking flying leaps over the blossom-burdened flowerbeds.

At tea that night, after gazing interestedly at Mr. Hawden’s nose for some time, uncle Julius inquired, “in the name of all that’s mysterious, what the devil have you been doing to your nose? You look as though you had been on the spree.”

I was quaking lest he would get me into a fine scrape, but he only muttered, “By Jove!” with great energy, and glowered menacingly across the table at me.

After tea he requested an interview with grannie, which aroused my curiosity greatly. I was destined to hear all about it next morning. When breakfast was over grannie called me into her room and interviewed me about Mr. Hawden’s interview. She began without any preliminaries:

“Mr. Hawden has complained of your conduct. It grieves me that any young man should have to speak to me of the behaviour of my own granddaughter. He says you have been flirting with him. Sybylla, I scarcely thought you would be so immodest and unwomanly.”

On hearing this my thoughts of Frank Hawden were the reverse of flattering. He had persecuted me beyond measure, yet I had not deigned to complain of him to either uncle, grannie, or auntie, as I might reasonably have done, and have obtained immediate redress. He had been the one to blame in the case, yet for the rebuffs he had brought upon himself, went tattling to my grandmother.

“Is that all you have to say, grannie?”

“No. He wants to marry you, and has asked my consent. I told him it all rested with yourself and parents. What do you say?”

“Say,” I exclaimed, “grannie, you are only joking, are you not?”

“No, my child, this is not a matter to joke about.”

“Marry that creature! A boy!” I uttered in consternation.

“He is no boy. He has attained his majority some months. He is as old as your grandfather was when we married. In three years you will be almost twenty, and by that time he will be in possession of his property which is very good⁠—in fact, he will be quite rich. If you care for him there is nothing against him as I can see. He is healthy, has a good character, and comes of a high family. Being a bit wild won’t matter. Very often, after they sow their wild oats, some of those scampy young fellows settle down and marry a nice young girl and turn out very good husbands.”

“It is disgusting, and you ought to be downright ashamed of yourself, grannie! A man can live a life of bestiality and then be considered a fit husband for the youngest and purest girl! It is shameful! Frank Hawden is not wild, he hasn’t got enough in him to be so. I hate him. No, he hasn’t enough in him to hate. I loathe and despise him. I would not marry him or anyone like him though he were King of England. The idea of marriage even with the best man in the world seems to me a lowering thing,” I raged; “but with him it would be pollution⁠—the lowest degradation that could be heaped upon me! I will never come down to marry anyone⁠—” here I fell a victim to a flood of excited tears.

I felt there was no good in the world, especially in men⁠—the hateful creatures!⁠—and never would be while it was not expected of them, even by rigidly pure, true Christians such as my grandmother. Grannie, dear old grannie, thought I should marry any man who, from a financial point of view, was a good match for me. That is where the sting came in. No, I would never marry. I would procure some occupation in which I could tread my life out, independent of the degradation of marriage.

“Dear me, child,” said grannie, concernedly, “there is no need to distress yourself so. I remember you were always fearfully passionate. When I had you with me as a tiny toddler, you would fret a whole day about a thing an ordinary child would forget inside an hour. I will tell Hawden to go about his business. I would not want you to consider marriage for an instant with anyone distasteful to you. But tell me truly, have you ever flirted with him? I will take your word, for I thank God you have never yet told me a falsehood!”

“Grannie,” I exclaimed emphatically, “I have discouraged him all I could. I would scorn to flirt with any man.”

“Well, well, that is all I want to hear about it. Wash your eyes, and we will get our horses and go over to see Mrs. Hickey and her baby, and take her something good to eat.”

I did not encounter Frank Hawden again till the afternoon, when he leered at me in a very triumphant manner. I stiffened myself and drew out of his way as though he had been some vile animal. At this treatment he whined, so I agreed to talk the matter over with him and have done with it once and for all.

He was on his way to water some dogs, so I accompanied him out to the stables near the kennels, to be out of hearing of the household.

I opened fire without any beating about the bush.

“I ask you, Mr. Hawden, if you have any sense of manliness, from this hour to cease persecuting me with your idiotic professions of love. I have two sentiments regarding it, and in either you disgust me. Sometimes I don’t believe there is such a thing as love at all⁠—that is, love between men and women. While in this frame of mind I would not listen to professions of love from an angel. Other times I believe in love, and look upon it as a sacred and solemn thing. When in that humour, it seems to me a desecration to hear you twaddling about the holy theme, for you are only a boy, and don’t know how to feel. I would not have spoken thus harshly to you, but by your unmanly conduct you have brought it upon yourself. I have told you straight all that I will ever deign to tell you on the subject, and take much pleasure in wishing you good afternoon.”

I walked away quickly, heedless of his expostulations.

My appeal to his manliness had no effect. Did I go for a ride, or a walk in the afternoon to enjoy the glory of the sunset, or a stroll to drink in the pleasures of the old garden, there would I find Frank Hawden by my side, yah, yah, yahing about the way I treated him, until I wished him at the bottom of the Red Sea.

However, in those glorious spring days the sense of life was too pleasant to be much clouded by the trifling annoyance Frank Hawden occasioned me. The graceful wild clematis festooned the shrubbery along the creeks with great wreaths of magnificent white bloom, which loaded every breeze with perfume; the pretty bright green senna shrubs along the riverbanks were decked in blossoms which rivalled the deep blue of the sky in brilliance; the magpies built their nests in the tall gum-trees, and savagely attacked unwary travellers who ventured too near their domain; the horses were rolling fat, and invited one to get on their satin backs and have a gallop; the cry of the leather-heads was heard in the orchard as the cherry season approached. Oh, it was good to be alive!

At Caddagat I was as much out of the full flood of life for which I craved as at Possum Gully, but here there were sufficient pleasant little ripples on the stream of existence to act as a stopgap for the present.