“Career!” exclaimed his foster-mother, catching at the word.  “Career!  That is all girls think of now, instead of being good wives and mothers and attending to their homes and doing what God intended.  All they think of is gadding about and being fast, and ruining themselves body and soul.  And the men are as bad to encourage them,” looking severely at Everard.

“There is a great deal of truth in what you say, gran, I admit.  You can apply it to many of our girls, I am sorry to confess, but Sybylla could not be brought under that classification.  You must look at her in a different way.  If—­”

“I look at her as the child of respectable people, and will not have the stage mentioned in connection with her.”  Here Grannie thumped her fist down on the table and there was silence, complete, profound.  Few dared argue with Mrs Bossier.

Dear old lady, she was never angry long, and in a minute or two she proceeded with her breakfast, saying quite pleasantly: 

“Never mention such a subject to me again; but I’ll tell you what you can do.  Next autumn, some time in March or April, when the fruit-preserving and jam-making are done with, Helen can take the child to Sydney for a month or so, and you can show them round.  It will be a great treat for Sybylla as she has never been in Sydney.”

“That’s right, let’s strike a bargain on that, gran.” said Everard.

“Yes; it’s a bargain, if I hear no more about the stage.  God intends His creatures for a better life than that.”

After breakfast I was left to entertain Everard for some while.  We had a fine time.  He was a perfect gentleman and a clever conversationalist.

I was always desirous of enjoying the company of society people who were well bred and lived according to etiquette, and possessed of leisure and culture sufficient to fill their minds with something more than the price of farm produce and a hard struggle for existence.  Hitherto I had only read of such or seen them in pictures, but here was a real live one, and I seized my opportunity with vim.  At my questioning and evident interest in his talk he told me of all the latest plays, actors, and actresses with whom he was acquainted, and described the fashionable balls, dinners, and garden-parties he attended.  Having exhausted this subject, we fell to discussing books, and I recited snatches of poems dear to me.  Everard placed his hands upon my shoulders and said: 

“Sybylla, do you know you are a most wonderful girl?  Your figure is perfect, your style refreshing, and you have a most interesting face.  It is as ever-changing as a kaleidoscope—­sometimes merry, then stern, often sympathetic, and always sad when at rest.  One would think you had had some sorrow in your life.”

Lifting my skirt at either side, I bowed several times very low in what I called my stage bow, and called into requisition my stage smile, which displayed two rows of teeth as white and perfect as any twenty-guinea set turned out on a gold plate by a fashionable dentist.