who was studying law with her brother Gilbert; but my brother and my cousin Louisa Brodie were supposed to be figuring in my book as lovers.  In a small society it was easy to affix the characteristics to some one whom it was possible the author might have met; but I shrank from the idea that I was capable of “taking off” people of my acquaintance, and for many reasons would have liked if the book had not been known to be mine in South Australia.  There must, however, have been some lifelike presentment of my characters, or they could not have been recognised.  About this time I read and appreciated Jane Austen’s novels—­those exquisite miniatures, which no doubt her contemporaries identified without much interest.  Her circle was as narrow as mine—­indeed, narrower.  She was the daughter of a clergyman in the country.  She represented well-to-do grownup people, and them alone.  The humour of servants, the sallies of children, the machinations of villains, the tricks of rascals, are not on her canvas; but she differentiated among equals with a firm hand, and with a constant ripple of amusement.  The life I led had more breadth and wider interests.  The life of Miss Austen’s heroines, though delightful to read about, would have been deadly dull to endure.  So great a charm have Jane Austen’s books had for me that I have made a practice of reading them through regularly once a year.

As we grew to love South Australia, we felt that we were in an expanding society, still feeling the bond to the motherland, but eager to develop a perfect society, in the land of our adoption.

CHAPTER VI.

A TRIP TO ENGLAND.

I have gone on with the story of my three first novels consecutively, anticipating the current history of myself and South Australia.  There were three great steps taken in the development of Australia.  The first was when McArthur introduced the merino sheep; the second when Hargreaves and others discovered gold; and the latest when cold-storage was introduced to make perishable products available for the European markets.  The second step created a sudden revolution; but the others were gradual, and the area of alluvial diggings in Victoria made thousands of men without capital or machinery rush to try their fortunes—­first from the adjacent colonies, and afterwards from the ends of the earth.  Law and order were kept on the goldfields of Mount Alexander, Bendigo, and Ballarat by means of a strong body of police, and the high licence fees for claims paid for their services, so that nothing like the scenes recorded of the Californian diggings could be permitted.  But for the time ordinary industries were paralysed.  Shepherds left their flocks, farmers their land, clerks their desks, and artisans their trades.  Melbourne grew apace in spite of the highest wages known being exacted by masons and carpenters.  Pastoralists thought ruin stared them in the face till they found what a