The Colonial Countess The Colonial Countess When, at the urging of her dying mother, eighteen-year-old farmworker Mary Evans sails for England in 1886, she has no idea that she has inherited her grandmother's heraldic title of Countess. Unused to the way of the British aristocracy, and much to the consternation of her peers, she adjusts in her own way to deal with the authority, privileges and wealth that have been bestowed upon her. The Compassionate Countess Two years after arriving in England in 1886, to discover that she had inherited the hereditary title of Countess, twenty-year-old Australian farm girl Mary Evans has adjusted, in her own way, to the authority, wealth and privileges bestowed on her. Mary has a passion to help those less fortunate than herself and uses her position to improve the lives of many of the people she meets.