The noise and bustle were enchanting. A labyrinth of streets obscured my sense of direction. Such a lively change from the bush where there was an ache of quietude and every range and road was dulled by familiarity and where one could steer by the sun or stars when outside the usual run.

At Circular Quay, Mrs. Crasterton puffed and I sprang out of the cab where Gaddy, who had arrived on a tram, was awaiting us. Cabs are contraptions designed to defeat all but the sturdiest horses, and the Sydney cab-men were not half so respectable-looking as those of Goulburn, but the ferry boat to North Sydney was a scrumptious dream.

My, the comforts and joys of the city compared with the bush! At Miller’s Point, Gaddy dumped us in another cab, which he directed to Geebung Villa, Pannikin Point, and we went off full rip in the wind and rain without him. I craned my neck to see the magnificent rocks rising on one side of the street, covered with the loveliest ferns with little springs of water trickling amongst them. The bamboos waving over walls high above filled me with astonished delight—giants’ wands with fairies’ grace. Doves were mourning and sparrows were twittering everywhere. On the other side were Aladdin glimpses of the Harbor. All too soon we had arrived.

My hostess paid the cabman. He was not satisfied. “You ugly old buzzard, and two of you and luggage to boot; Had I knowed you were to be that mean, I’d have tipped yous both out in the mud.”

“Run inside, my dear,” said Mrs. Crasterton.

“You old skin flint, you’d bile down fleas for their hides.”

“Run away, you’ll be shocked,” repeated Mrs. Crasterton, but it seemed cowardly to leave her. The language did not worry me. I had been audience to bullockies in action, to amateurs getting sheep across a creek, and to veterans training sheep puppies. Besides, I have never cultivated the pose that to hear of the common actualities of life would outrage me out of health. It is the being compelled to subscribe to cant and inconsistencies about them that I find so enervating.

A maid took my portmanteau. Mrs. Crasterton told me to follow the maid while she followed me laying the blame of “the growing insolence of the lower classes” on the unhealthy growth of the Labor Party, which she averred would be the ruin of the new Commonwealth. The rain pattered greyly on the bamboos and hibiscus, which shaded the side verandah, the cabby’s voice came as a refrain as we entered the home of a dead statesman where I was to find culture and high congeniality.

Only once in a lifetime can anticipation hold such a quality of flattery towards a clique or a class as mine did at that moment.

“We are not having anyone in tonight,” said Mrs. Crasterton when she came to my room. “Show me your dresses, child.”

It was a trying moment. I showed the new dress that I was to wear in the evenings, and the other one for street wear. “I must give you some dresses,” she murmured.