“People are magging more about your book than the drought or the price of wool,” chimed Eusty. “Everybody is sorry for your Pa and Ma. They say you should have been kept under more.”

“Now you see what your policy of encouraging her has done,” said Ma.

“Agh! A lot of magpies chattering on the fence posts.”

I was in an agony of disgrace. I did not sleep that night. I lay awake shivering with ignominy and listening to the mopokes and plovers. I did not mind what people thought or were so silly as to mis-think about me, it was Ma. To have brought disgrace upon her and to be compelled to remain there and be tied to it in ’Possum Gully was a deadly tribulation.

A prophet denounced where he is known often has a great innings among strangers. Sometimes things are thus and sometimes otherwise. In my case it was both thus and otherwise. Otherwise came later: I must continue about thus.

Following his next sorties Eusty reported that Mrs. Crispin had said to Mrs. Oxley that she had not been to see poor Mrs. Melvyn, as she did not know what to say about that Sybylla. “Then they cackled,” said Eusty, “and said something more about that Sybylla which I couldn’t hear.”

“I’m sure that was no fault of your ears,” remarked Pa, and smiled to himself. I wondered why. I thought it callous of Pa.

Ma took the whole thing calmly. She was disapproving but that was business as usual.

At anyrate Eusty had great pleasure in the affair. His eyes popped and he danced a can-can after each report. “You’ve done it, Sybylla,” he would giggle. “All the girls reckon they ain’t going to talk to any one so unwomanly. Elsie Blinder says her Ma says it is indelicate for a girl to write books at all.”

The trouble spread. It seemed to be more wide-spread than the drought, which that season was confined to the Southern Tableland. People arrived to condole with Pa about his hussy of a daughter, and had to scrunch on the brakes when they found Pa so lost to all ’Possum Gully and Little Jimmy Dripping common sense as to be vainglorious. He enjoyed being my father much more than I enjoyed being myself.

Every house in the district had the book, though hitherto the only reading had been the “Penny Post” and the Bible or a circular from Tattersall’s. It was the sensation of the age and at least relieved dulness. People in other ’Possum Gullies were equally excited, and not so annoyed. The mail bag grew fuller and fuller with the weeks. Girls from all over Australia wrote to say that I had expressed the innermost core of their hearts. Others attacked Pa for allowing his daughter to write such a book. As one man put it, “Malicious lies without cause, for it is not a bit like us.” Another wrote, “Of course she has altered little things here and there but everybody who reads the book will immediately know it is us because it is all so plain and true to life.”