Cirrus@Austlit

The following editor's note accompanied the first instalment of this work when it appeared in The Bathurst Advocate on 25 March 1848: 'We have been favoured with the manuscript of the following Tale. Independent of its merit, it may be acceptable to our readers on account of its having been written by a resident of our own district'.

Epigraph: '"What speak I more than I this moment- feel?" - YOUNG'

This serialised story has no denouement. The 12th instalment appearing in vol. 1 no. 27 of The Bathurst Advocate, despite the footnote 'to be continued', is the last episode published in the newspaper. Interestingly, in the same issue of the paper, a letter of complaint regarding the serialisation was published. The correspondent, signing off as 'An Observer', writes that 'old grey-headed men who have wives, don't take much pleasure in reading love stories'. He goes on to say that his wife believes the author of Maria Mildred 'must have vacuum some place in his head, or else he never write so much nonsense about nothing.' After canvassing the opinions of 'learned' aquantainces, 'An Observer' concludes with the request, 'Mr Editor, will you do me the kindness to tell the writer of Miss Mildred that when he thinks of writing any more of that kind of trash, to take a sleeping draught.'