My Brilliant Career

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Authors: Miles Franklin
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not? Eight wires, a top rail, and very stout posts. Harry Beecham had that put up by contract this year. Twelve miles of it. It cost him a lot: couldn’t get any very low tenders, the ground being so hard on account of the drought. Those trees are Five-Bob Downs—see, away over against the range. But I suppose you know the places better than I do.”
    We were now within an hour of our destination. How familiar were many landmarks to me, although I had not seen them since I was eight years old.
    A river ran on our right, occasionally a glimmer of its noisy waters visible through the shrubbery which profusely lined its banks. The short evening was drawing to a close. The white mists brought by the rain were crawling slowly down the hills, and settling in the hollows of the ranges on our left. A V-shaped rift in them, known as Pheasant Gap, came into view. Mr. Hawden said it was well named, as it swarmed with lyrebirds. Night was falling. The skreel of a hundred curlews arose from the gullies—how I love their lonely wail!—and it was quite dark when we pulled up before the front gate of Caddagat.
    A score ofdogs rushed yelping to meet us, the front door was thrown open, lights and voices came streaming out.
    I alighted from the buggy feeling rather nervous. I was a pauper with a bad character. How would my grandmother receive me? Dear old soul, I had nothing to fear. She folded me in a great warm-hearted hug, saying, “Dear me, child, your face is cold. I’m glad you’ve come. It has been a terrible day, but we’re glad to have the rain. You must be frozen. Get in to the fire, child, as fast as you can. Get in to the fire, get in to the fire. I hope you forgive me for not going to meet you.” And there was my mother’s only sister, my tall graceful aunt, standing beside her, giving me a kiss and cordial hand clasp, and saying, “Welcome, Sybylla. We will be glad to have a young person to brighten up the old home once more. I am sorry I was too unwell to meet you. You must be frozen; come to the fire.”
    My aunt always spoke very little and very quietly, but there was something in her high-bred style which went right home.
    I could scarcely believe that they were addressing me. Surely they were making a mistake. This reception was meant for some grand relative honoring them with a visit, and not for the ugly, useless, bad little pauper come to live upon their bounty.
    Their welcome did more than all the sermons I had ever heard put together toward thawing a little of the pitiless cynicism which encrusted my heart.
    â€œTake the child inside, Helen, as fast as you can,” said Grannie, “while I see that the boy attends to the horses. The plaguey fellow can’t be trusted any further than the length of his nose. I told him to tie up these dogs, and here they are yelp-yelping fit to deafen a person.”
    I left my wet umbrella on the veranda, and Aunt Helen led me into the dining room, where a spruce maid was making a pleasant clatter in laying the table. Caddagat was a very old style of house, and all the front rooms opened onto the veranda without any such preliminary as a hall, therefore it was necessary to pass through the dining room to my bedroom, which was a skillion at the back. While Auntie paused for a moment to give some orders to the maid, I noticed the heavy silver serviette ringsI remembered so well, and the old-fashioned dinner plates, and the big fire roaring in the broad white fireplace; but more than all, the beautiful pictures on the walls and a table in a corner strewn with papers, magazines, and several very new-looking books. On the back of one of these I saw “Corelli,” and on another—great joy!—was
Trilby
. From the adjoining apartment, which was the drawing room, came the sweet, full tones of a beautiful piano. Here were three things for which I had been starving. An impulse to revel in them immediately seized me. I felt

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