Published in 1910, this coming-of-age novel was based on the author's teenage experiences as a boarder at the Presbyterian Ladies' College in Melbourne from 1883-87. Her heroine, Laura Tweedle Rambotham, comes from a once well-off family now fallen on hard times. Smart and strong willed, Laura is hard pressed to retain her self-possession amid the countless small, tawdry humiliations of boarding-school life.