She was one of four children born to Thomas Havers (1810–1870) of Thelton Hall, the family seat, Thelveton in Norfolk and his first wife Ellen Ruding.

[4] In 1860 Thomas was relieved of his position in the Falklands and found a new post with new employers in Montevideo, relocating his family there.

[6][1] She began her writing for magazines in 1871, enjoying a two-year run of stories with Cassell's Family Magazine edited by the novelist G. Manville Fenn and a decade with the periodical All the Year Round edited by Charles Dickens Jr.[1] She wrote her first novel, True to her Trust, or, Womanly Past Question which was a romance in 1874.

[8] She wrote fiction with a heroine at the centre of the plot including her 1885 book "Lil Lorimer" which concerns a girl growing up in South America and it is thought to be based in part on her own life.

Her story includes the alcoholism and over-enthusiastic missionaries but again the narrative revolves around heroic women.