As a vivid study, combined with excellent comedy, the portrait of Sara Cavendish would not have been unworthy of Thackeray. The selfishness concealed by her demure exterior and great beauty, and the absurdly excessive estimate of her virtues made by the Reverend Francis Lydiat, are a warning to all susceptible young men. Lydiat was a passenger by the ship which carried Sara and her parents to Australia. When he gave his weekly sermons during the voyage, Miss Cavendish was always present, and looked at him with her large eyes to such purpose that they 'seemed to be absorbing his meaning into the soul of their possessor.'
But there was nothing ethereal in Sara's thoughts. 'She had a fancy for imagining becoming dresses. She would build up a delightful wardrobe in the air, entering into as many details of her airy outfit as though it could be instantly materialised. And she liked to imagine a becoming background for her own beautiful person, in which a husband with the essentials of good birth and unlimited money, and the desirable qualifications of an air of distinction and great devotion to her, filled a reasonable space.' Lydiat had often seen her lost in daydreams such as it would have seemed to him almost a sacrilege to disturb, 'though it is probable that the only notion he would have been guilty of upsetting had reference to the shape of an imaginary velvet train.'
The insight and completeness with which Sara's character is depicted in the course of the story make it impossible that the reader should entirely dislike her as a mere sample of the calculating coquette. She is one of that large class of women, with a limited capacity for affection, whose natures expand only in an atmosphere of luxury. 'Don't be shocked,' she says to her sister in reference to the unsuccessful suit of her clerical lover; 'I never intended to be a poor man's wife.' As a contrast to the cold personality of the beautiful Sara, the author gives a charming picture of the elder sister's affection and thoughtfulness for others.
Margaret Cavendish and Eila Frost, in _Not Counting the Cost_, are good women of a perfectly possible and natural kind, and it is surprising to think that the same hand which drew them also found patience to draw the unhappy, metaphysical heroines of _In Her Earliest Youth_ and _The Knight of the White Feather_. Tasma is seldom so pleasing as when describing the characters of children, of whom several figure prominently in her novels. There is a delightful picture of romping childhood at the opening of _Not Counting the Cost_. The scene is a farm in the shadow of Mount Wellington, near Hobart, the city where the author spent many of her own early years. 'Chubby,' the eight-year-old uncle of the heroine of _In Her Earliest Youth_, and Louey Piper are lovable creations, though, it must be said, more quaint than natural. One remembers the expansive dignity of the former on his first meeting with Pauline's lover, George Drafton. 'How do you do, little man?' says the latter condescendingly. 'How do you do, sir?' replies the little man stiffly, raising his garden hat. 'You are an acquaintance of Paul--of Miss Vyner's, I believe. I have the honour to be her maternal uncle.' No wonder George bursts into a loud guffaw, notwithstanding the tragic intensity of his love protestations of five minutes before!