"Other people might grow old and faded with a monotonous life, but not she. In her heart she cherished a dream that the gods held something wonderful in store for her.

"Helen Somerset feels stifled by her loveless home with a repressive father who fears that, like her absent mother, she may be only 'painted clay'. She wants to know life beyond the confined of Packington, a Melbourne suburb overlooking Port Phillip Bay. And when she is sixteen her father dies, releasing Helen to seek the affection and indepenedence she has been denied. With a clerical job and room in a lodging house Helen launches herself into the excitement of Bohemian life and free love -- only to discover that this liberation has a double edge. First published in 1917, splendidly evoking the bustle of city life before the First World War, this is a moving tale of one woman striving to find herself in a restrictive society.