Eliza Margaret Jane Humphreys

“ Robert Forbes never intended to do anything so unpalatable — or disastrous. He let her go, and from that hour gave her neither sign nor word of his existence. She lived on at Sydney for several years, waiting and watching for this tardy lover to reappear. He never did, and another space of time swept Catherine on to the debatable ground of thirty, and she found herself more ill-favored, gaunt and hard- hearted than ever. Her temper had grown worse. ”

“ From the age of nineteen to that of twenty-five she lived at the Old' House, and quarreled with and managed its domestic affairs, to the great trial and bitterness of her parents and the one domestic, whom she ruled with a rod of iron and an array of texts. Even in those days of comparative youth, Catherine Macpherson had found out the benefit of "doctrine" as a weapon in the hand of the weak. ”

“ At this stage of her existence, Catherine Macpherson's history seemed to become of that monotonous kind that "repeats itself." She went from one relative to another on visits of various length, that always ended disastrously. Then she would fling a score or two of texts at their heads, shake the dust of their dwelling from off her No. 7 boots, and try her luck with another.
At last, she essayed a noble independence of spirit, and took a situation as companion to an old Scotch doctor and his wife. The wife was nearly deaf, and the doctor nearly blind, so she suited them fairly well. ”