ou are in one of those reproachful moods, and seem as
if you were anxious to make me out a heartless sort of miscreant. In
Heaven's name, why not make the best of things? Why need we be
melodramatic? We are man and woman of the world. We must take the
world as we find it, and ourselves for what it has made us.'

Ariana's answer was given later on when she realized the full extent to
which she had been self-deluded: 'I am not going to be melodramatic. We
can be very good friends on the outside. We need never be anything
more.'

A strong bias towards analysis is the chief characteristic of Mrs.
Praed's studies in character. As in her illustrations of the perplexing
uncertainties of married life it is the woman's point of view that is
most impressively presented, so in each story there is at least one
woman whose personality stands out in pathetic relief and claims
paramount attention. She is usually a cultivated woman of romantic
tendency, living in a restricted social environment, and displaying the
craving of that class of her sex for change, pleasurable excitement, and
sympathy. In the satisfaction of her yearnings or ambitions are seen,
perhaps more often than is typical, the gloomy aspects of marriage, and
the incompetence of women to manage their own lives.

The average Australian girl of real life is neither very romantic nor
fastidious. She is cheerful, adaptable, too fond of pleasure to be
thoughtful, and has a decided inclination towards married life. Its
material advantages and status attract her--and, for the rest, she has a
vague confidence that everything will come right. Nowhere is the horror
of elderly spinsterhood more potent. The influence of independent
professional life fostered by the large public schools is still
infinitesimal.

The type upon which Mrs. Praed has bestowed her most elaborate work
belongs to a class both higher and far fewer in numbers. It is the class
that Mr. Froude had chiefly in view when he noted the absence of 'severe
intellectual interests' as a deficiency of society at Sydney.

Honoria Longleat, the principal study of Mrs. Praed's second novel, may,
with a few obvious deductions, be taken as a fair example of the
colonial woman educated beyond sympathy with her native surroundings,
and unprovided with any employment for her mental energies. With the
distractions and interests of her narrow circle exhausted, and the
knowledge that her future--her only possib