Thirty Years in Australia by Ada Cambridge

The charms of solitude at "The Old Parsonage" were outweighed by its disadvantages when I became that miserable creature, the confirmed invalid. The fire danger which made me nervous in summer was bad for health; the silence and loneliness of the winters, when nobody came, were worse. My husband, of course, was much away from home; the servants lived in their detached house; and so good and capable were they that for a time -- after the elder babies began to go with Miss C. to school -- I saved the expense of my dear little lady-help, who, however, came back to me later on. It was only with the greatest difficulty that I could get hold of my own children.

Their devoted nurse and mine, already mentioned, watched us like a cat to keep us apart, lest their exuberance should fatigue me. The hour before tea (not afternoon tea, but the solid evening meal) was grudgingly conceded to us. Maria -- she, like Dik, is dead, and I may give her the name now held in so much love and honour -- would then bring them, beautifully brushed and garbed (she used to put clean socks and pinafores on them twice a day, although there was nobody but ourselves to see them), to my sofa side, and permit us to play together, provided we behaved ourselves. All the while she hovered in the doorway to see that I was not clambered over or roughly handled in any way, and long before time was up would advance to sweep them out, with her "Come now, I can see that mother is getting tired."