Shortly after getting married, English-born author Ada Cambridge set sail for Australia, where she would live for most of the rest of her life. The experience proved to be a formative one in terms of her literary career, as many of her essays and novels focused on aspects of life "e;down under."e; The novel A Mere Chance focuses on the social debut of a plucky young lady named Rachel Fetherstonhaugh, who makes a splash in the stuffy upper echelons of Melbourne high society.