Explore "My Brilliant Career" by Miles Franklin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
About a week or so after I first met Harold Beecham, aunt Helen allowed me to read a letter she had received from the elder of the two Misses Beecham. It ran as follows:
"My dearest Helen, / "This is a begging letter, and I am writing another to your mother at the same time. I am asking her to allow her granddaughter to spend a few weeks with me, and I want you to use your influence in the matter. Sarah has not been well lately, and is going to Melbourne for a change, and as I will be lonely while she is away Harold insists upon me having someone to keep me company -- you know how considerate the dear boy is. I hardly like to ask you to spare your little girl to me. It must be a great comfort to have her. I could have got Miss Benson to stay with me, but Harold will not hear of her. He says she is too slow, and would give us both the mopes. But he says your little niece will keep us all alive. Julius was telling me the other day that he could not part with her, as she makes ‘the old barracks,' as he always calls Caddagat, echo with fun and noise. I am so looking forward to seeing her, as she is dear Lucy's child. Give her my love," etc., etc., and as a postscript the letter had -- "Harold will go up for Sybylla on Wednesday afternoon. I do hope you will be able to spare her to me for a while. "