Explore "My Brilliant Career" by Miles Franklin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
They were expecting me on the frosty evening in September, and the children came bounding and shouting to meet me, when myself and luggage were deposited at 'Possum Gully by a neighbour, as he passed in a great hurry to reach his own home ere it got too dark. They bustled me to a glowing fire in no time.
My father sat reading, and, greeting me in a very quiet fashion, continued the perusal of his paper. My mother shut her lips tightly, saying exultingly, "It seems it was possible for you to find a worse place than home; " and that little speech was the thorn on the rose of my welcome home. But there was no sting in Gertie's greeting, and how beautiful she was growing, and so tall! It touched me to see she had made an especial dainty for my tea, and had put things on the table which were only used for visitors. The boys and little Aurora chattered and danced around me all the while. One brought for my inspection some soup-plates which had been procured during my absence; another came with a picture-book; and nothing would do them but that I must, despite the darkness, straightaway go out and admire a new fowl-house which "Horace and Stanley built all by theirselves, and no one helped them one single bit."