are always discontented about your home. Itâs no use; the only thing is for you to earn your own living.â
âI will earn my own living.â
âWhat will you do? Will you be examined for a pupil teacher? That is a very nice occupation for girls.â
âWhat chance would I have in a competitive exam against Goulburn girls? They all have good teachers and give up their time to study. I only have Old Harris, and he is the most idiotic old animal alive; besides, I loathe the very thought of teaching. Iâd as soon go on the wallaby.â
âYou are not old enough to be a general servant or a cook; you have not experience enough to be a housemaid; you donât take to sewing, and there is no chance of being accepted as a hospital nurse: you must confess there is nothing you can do. You are really a very useless girl for your age.â
âThere are heaps of things I could do.â
âTell me a few of them.â
I was silent. The professions at which I felt I had the latent power to excel, were I but given a chance, were in a sphere farabove us, and to mention my feelings and ambitions to my matter-of-fact, practical mother would bring upon me worse ridicule than I was already forced to endure day by day.
âMention a few of the things you could do.â
I might as well have named flying as the profession I was thinking of. Music was the least unmentionable of them, so I brought it forward.
âMusic! But it would take years of training and great expense before you could earn anything at that! It is quite out of the question. The only thing for you to do is to settle down and take interest in your work, and help make a living at home, or else go out as a nurse-girl, and work your way up. If you have any ability in you, it would soon show. If you think you could do such strokes, and the home work is not good enough for you, go out and show the world what a wonderful creature you are.â
âMother, you are unjust and cruel!â I exclaimed. âYou do not understand one at all. I never thought I could do strokes. I cannot help being constituted so that grimy manual labor is hateful to me, for it is hateful to me, and I hate it more and more every day, and you can preach and preach till you go black in the face, and still Iâll hate it more than ever. If I have to do it all my life, and if Iâm cursed with a long life, Iâll hate it just as much at the end as I do now. Iâm sure itâs not any wish of mine that Iâm born with inclinations for better things. If I could be born again, and had the designing of myself, Iâd be born the lowest and coarsest-minded person imaginable, so that I could find plenty of companionship, or Iâd be born an idiot, which would be better still.â
âSybylla!â said my mother in a shocked tone. âIt is a wonder God doesnât strike you dead; I never heardââ
âI donât believe there is a God,â I said fiercely, âand if there is, Heâs not the merciful being Heâs always depicted, or He wouldnât be always torturing me for His own amusement.â
âSybylla, Sybylla! That I should ever have nurtured a child to grow up like this! Do you know thatââ
âI only know that I hate this life. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it,â I said vehemently.
âTalk about going out to earn your own living! Why, thereâsnot a woman living would have you in her house above a day. You are a perfect she-devil. Oh, God!â And my mother began to cry. âWhat have I done to be cursed with such a child? There is not another woman in the district with such a burden put upon her. What have I done? I can only trust that my prayers to God for you will soften your evil heart.â
âIf your prayers are answered, itâs more than ever mine were,â I retorted.
â
Your
prayers!â said my mother, with scorn. âThe horror of a