Oh, and Jane was going to be trafficked by an evil hypnotist, and the woman providing him with children for this was also keeping Ruth as a kitchen lackey. Phryne finds Jane as an amnesiac on the train to Ballarat, and after Jane gets her memory back she insists that if Phryne's going to adopt her she should take Ruth too. Ruth apprentices herself to Mrs Butler as a future cook, and likes romance novels. Jane is a classic absent-minded genius and wants to be a doctor.

(These books were a fixture of my adolescence.)