vent of all was the advent of a new resident.

When such a thing occurred it was customary for all the male heads of
families to pay a visit of inspection, to judge if the new-comers were
worthy of admittance into the bosom of the society of the neighbourhood.
Should their report prove favourable, then their wives finished the
ceremony of inauguration by paying a friendly visit.

After his arrival at Possum Gully father was much away on business, and
so on my mother fell the ordeal of receiving the callers, male and
female.

The men were honest, good-natured, respectable, common bushmen farmers.
Too friendly to pay a short call, they came and sat for hours yarning
about nothing in particular. This bored my gentle mother excessively. She
attempted to entertain them with conversation of current literature and
subjects of the day, but her efforts fell flat. She might as well have
spoken in French.

They conversed for hours and hours about dairying, interspersed with
pointless anecdotes of the man who had lived there before us. I found
them very tame.

After graphic descriptions of life on big stations outback, and the
dashing snake yarns told by our kitchen-folk at Bruggabrong, and the
anecdotes of African hunting, travel, and society life which had often
formed our guests' subject of conversation, this endless fiddle-faddle of
the price of farm produce and the state of crops was very fatuous.

Those men, like everyone else, only talked shop. I say nothing in
condemnation of it, but merely point out that it did not then interest
us, as we were not living in that shop just then.

Mrs Melvyn must have found favour in the eyes of the specimens of the
lords of creation resident at Possum Gully, as all the matrons of the
community hastened to call on her, and vied with each other in a display
of friendliness and good-nature. They brought presents of poultry, jam,
butter, and suchlike. They came at two o'clock and stayed till dark. They
inventoried the furniture, gave mother cookery recipes, described
minutely the unsurpassable talents of each of their children, and
descanted volubly upon the best way of setting turkey hens. On taking
their departure they cordially invited us all to return their visits, and
begged mother to allow her children to spend a day with theirs.

We had been resident in our new quarters nearly a month when my parents
received an intimation from the teacher of the public school, two miles
distant