Start not, gentle reader, at the paradox we have uttered; for in Australia, that land of precocity, where both vegetable and animal nature shoots up into maturity so quickly, the transition appears almost miraculous; and those we have known yesterday as children, we are surprised, probably, after a year or two's absence, to see grown to man or woman's estate. Such cases are not the exception, but the rule. So, therefore, be not surprised when we state that at an age, when, in this staid old-fashioned going country, match-making matrons may be thinking of introducing their daughters to the world, their cognates, the fair "corn-stalks" of Australia, will not only have long since made their _debût_ in society, but have settled into devoted wives and happy mothers. And, bless their little hearts! we doubt not, but that, as they are matured both in person and mind at an earlier age, and have consequently less time and opportunities to acquire the deceptions of society, they are as much, if not more, calculated to fulfil their worldly destiny, with credit to themselves and happiness to their concomitants, as their more favoured sisters of our own glorious isle.
Eleanor Rainsfield, as we have hinted, retained a cast of melancholy in her features, which gave her an appearance of coldness and reserve to strangers, aided, perhaps, by a natural diffidence and desire for seclusion; which she preferred to thrusting herself forward, or mixing much with the world. When known, however, she was gentle and kind, with an amiability and candour exceedingly attractive; and when interested with the conversation of one for whom she entertained respect, a smile usually played over her placid features and made her perfectly irresistible. This smile would vanish with the cessation of the conversation, and the evanescent animation pass with it; leaving the stranger in doubt, when gazing on the returning gloom, if the former sunshine had been the effect of pleasurable emotions, or a shadowing forth of a latent melancholy. She was highly accomplished, and her mind was the emblem of purity itself. Her present refuge had been offered to her by her cousin upon the death of her father, and gratefully accepted; while the remainder of the family had been dispersed amongst various relatives.