I sat him on a footstool, so that I might with facility put my hand on his sandy hair, and turning to uncle, commenced: 

“Shure, sir, seeing it was a good bhoy yez were afther to run errants, it’s meself that has brought this youngsther for yer inspection.  It’s a jool ye’ll have in him.  Shure I rared him meself, and he says his prayers every morning.  Kape sthill, honey!  Faith, ye’re not afraid of yer poor old mammy pullin’ yer beautiful cur-r-rls?”

Uncle Jay-Jay was laughing like fun; even aunt Helen deigned to smile; and Everard was looking on with critical interest.

“Go on,” said uncle.  But Mr Hawden got huffy at the ridicule which he suspected I was calling down upon him, and jumped up looking fit to eat me.

I acted several more impromptu scenes with the other occupants of the drawing-room.  Mr Hawden emitted “Humph!” from the corner where he grumpily sat, but Mr Grey was full of praise.

“Splendid! splendid!” he exclaimed.  “You say you have not had an hour’s training, and never saw a play.  Such versatility.  Your fortune would be made on the stage.  It is a sin to have such exceptional talent wasting in the bush.  I must take her to Sydney and put her under a good master.”

“Indeed, you’ll do no such thing,” said uncle.  “I’ll keep her here to liven up the old barracks.  You’ve got enough puppets on the stage without a niece of mine ever being there.”

I went to bed that night greatly elated.  Flattery is sweet to youth.  I felt pleased with myself, and imagined, as I peeped in the looking-glass, that I was not half bad-looking after all.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Yah!

“Bah, you hideous animal!  Ha ha!  Your peerless conceit does you credit.  So you actually imagined that by one or two out of every hundred you might he considered passable.  You are the most uninteresting person in the world.  You are small and nasty and bad, and every other thing that’s abominable.  That’s what you are.”

This address I delivered to my reflection in the glass next morning.  My elation of the previous night was as flat as a pancake.  Dear, oh dear, what a fool I had been to softly swallow the flattery of Mr Grey without a single snub in return!  To make up for my laxity, if he continued to amuse himself by plastering my vanity with the ointment of flattery, I determined to serve up my replies to him red-hot and well seasoned with pepper.

I finished my toilet, and in a very what’s-the-good-o’-anything mood took a last glance in the glass to say, “You’re ugly, you’re ugly and useless; so don’t forget that and make a fool of yourself again.”

I was in the habit of doing this; it had long ago taken the place of a morning prayer.  I said this, that by familiarity it might lose a little of its sting when I heard it from other lips, but somehow it failed in efficacy.