hich society accepts--with the high,
impracticable ideals of inexperienced womanhood.

The heroines in nearly all of Mrs. Praed's stories have the life of
sentiment and passion revealed to them by men older in years, and
skilled in those small arts and graces of refined society which are ever
attractive to women. But, in fulfilling this design, the men themselves
are often placed in a strained and artificial pose. The presentation of
the purely emotional side of their nature inevitably tends to produce an
appearance of weakness and effeminacy.

There is hardly a single admirable quality in Barrington, the base lover
of Honoria Longleat; or in George Brand, who deserts Esther Hagart in
her poverty and loneliness, and years afterwards, on finding her
recognised as the niece of an English baronet, persuades her into an
unhappy marriage; or in Brian Gilmore, the profligate in _Moloch_, who
seeks to rejuvenate his jaded passions with the love of an innocent
girl, after abandoning another woman whose life he has spoiled. Sir
Bruce Carr-Gambier forsakes Christina Chard and her child for cowardly
reasons similar to those pleaded by Brand. When they meet, long-after,
he offers his devotion again, but only because her developed beauty,
position, and reputed wealth attract him.

It is true that these characters fairly fulfil the author's intention,
so far as they bring into vivid juxtaposition the polished life of the
old world with the simplicity of the new, and help to give the necessary
dramatic point to the several stories; but there is so much of the cad
in their nature and conduct, that it is difficult to accept them as
representatives of any conceivable type of the Englishman of birth and
refinement. This result, however, does not imply any actual inability on
the part of the author to realise the standard of true manhood in all
its varying strength and foibles, its tenderness and honour. Where there
has not seemed any necessity to bend the character to the requirements
of the story, admirably life-like sketches of men have been
produced--such as Rolf Luard in _Christina Chard_ and Bernard Comyn in
_An Australian Heroine_ among Englishmen; and Dyson Maddox, Frank
Hallett, and James Ferguson among Australians.

Though it is plain that Mrs. Praed has generally found colonial men
wanting in interest in proportion as they themselves lack the polish
that travel and extended experience of social life impart, she has not
overl