Maud Stangrove in _The Squatter's Dream_, and Antonia Frankston in _The Colonial Reformer_, who seem to offer the best opportunities to typify Australian womanhood, are gracefully described; but, save for an occasional longing to relieve the monotony of their lives by a taste of European travel and culture, they are indistinguishable from such purely English types as Ruth Allerton and Estelle Challoner. Very pathetic, and marked by some distinctively Antipodean traits, is the sister of the bushrangers in _Robbery under Arms_. Aileen Marston has the strong self-reliance and independence which are born of the exigencies, as well as of the free life, of the country. She and her brothers represent much of what is best in Boldrewood's portrayal of native character. Maddie and Bella Barnes and Miss Falkland in the same novel, Kate Lawless in _Nevermore_, and Possie Barker in _A Sydneyside Saxon_, are also Antipodeans, but are only lightly sketched. Boldrewood claims that in his writings he has always upheld the Australian character. It is a fact that he has incidentally done this to a considerable extent, but not by any notable portraiture. In the period with which the novels deal the population of the colonies was largely English; it was, therefore, perhaps only natural that the stranger and adventurer from the Old World, so often well born and cultured, should prove a more attractive study than the sons of the soil. Moreover, the latter, in their monotonous and circumscribed life, lacked much of the mystery and romance so vital to the novel of adventure. But when this has been admitted in Boldrewood's favour, there still remains a broader charge to which he is liable. He has been accused, and it must be confessed with a good deal of justice, of paying too little attention in later novels (taking the order of their publication in London) to the development of even those characters most concerned in his plots. The fault is purely one of judgment. It is hardly possible to suppose any lack of ability in a writer who has produced the bright and suggestive dialogue scattered through the pages of _Robbery under Arms_ and The _Miner's Right_. Giving rein to his passion for reminiscence and descriptive detail, he has paid the inevitable penalty of a loss in human interest. So obvious is this loss in the stories of pastoral life, that one is almost fain to assume it to be the result of deliberate choice. How far the author, in this section of his writing, has neglected the social and dramatic possibilities of country life, can be judged by noting Mrs. Campbell Praed's work in _The Head Station_, _Policy and Passion_, or _The Romance of a Station_. But the best contrast to Boldrewood's style is furnished by the author of _Geoffry Hamlyn_.