My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin — Read

Here goes for a full account of my first, my last, my only real sweetheart, for I considered the professions of that pestiferous jackeroo as merely a grotesque caricature on the genuine article.

On making my first appearance before my lover, I looked quite the reverse of a heroine. My lovely hair was not conveniently escaping from the comb at the right moment to catch him hard in the eye, neither was my thrillingly low sweet voice floating out on the scented air in a manner which went straight to his heart, like the girls I had read of. On the contrary, I much resembled a female clown. It was on a day towards the end of September, and I had been up the creek making a collection of ferns. I had on a pair of men's boots with which to walk in the water, and was garbed in a most dilapidated old dress, which I had borrowed from one of the servants for the purpose. A pair of gloves made of basil, and a big hat, much torn in struggling through the undergrowth, completed my makeup. My hair was most unbecomingly screwed up, the short ends sticking out like a hurrah's nest.