Ma seemed all right in her half of the recipe for genius. It must have been dear old Pa who had failed in the satyr business.

Old Grayling was unregenerate and his senility was incurable, so Pa and Ma decided to accept one of the many invitations that came for me at that time. Mrs. P. Darius Crasterton was most pressing. The Rt. Hon. P. Darius had been Minister for Lands when Pa had been member for Gool Gool. His widow assured Ma that she would chaperone me carefully and that I should see all the best people—the worth-while ones of weight in the country.

Pa recalled that the old man had made his fortune by rake-offs in the distribution of railway lines during his administration. Pa had lost his seat because he had resisted the swindle of taking the railway around by some big fellows’ runs instead of through a farming district. Old Crasterton and one Sir James Hobnob later had had their way and grew rich and honoured, while Pa became poor and obscure. Pa said he did not suppose that the old woman could help her husband’s misappropriation of public funds: I could see the world with her and learn to judge it.

What I would be able to pick up from people who “really mattered”, she said, would be an invaluable education to me with my “very considerable but uncultivated natural gifts”, and that what counted in cultivating good style were the “contacts” which she would be able to give me.

She mispelled litreature, privilidge and realy, but not to spell correctly is sometimes considered a sign of genius and sometimes a lack of education. The thing was to find out when it was which. Ma had a struggle to find the railway fare, but there was a cheap excursion, and Mrs. Crasterton said she would be pleased to give me some dresses in return for the pleasure it would be to have my fresh young company.

Ma warned me against putting myself under obligations. “You’ll be more self-respecting if you don’t,” said she.

Pa said “Hoh! The people who want you for your clothes are not worth knowing.”

“Nevertheless, I can’t send the child away naked,” said Ma.

I craved a long dress, but Ma said that would involve more than she could afford. If I kept my hair down I was still a girl “not out”, staying with Mrs. Crasterton, and it would be simpler for everyone. She made me a dress of white organdie. It had frills at the cuffs and two flounces, and tucks all over the bodice. Ma could sew better than anyone else, and cut out with a beautiful line. The dress was finished with a bow at the V of the sailor collar, and I had more ribbon to tie my pigtail in a bump on my neck, something like the bob-tailed draught horses at the Show. I longed for a blue sash, but Ma said it would be useless expense and that only tall slender girls could wear sashes.