'Helen, Millicent, Mabel, Ranald, their guardian Mrs Markham, and an entourage of servants set off for Australia after the loss of their father and brother. Half-way through the novel they arrive at "Auburn" Station and later take up their own station, "Rosella". the observe a enormous variety of animal life [...] and cheerfully shoot lyre-birds and bell-birds as specimens. Ranald is lost in the bush (and found by a stranger who finally identifies himself as his father), they experience a bushfire, are saved from incineration by a long-lost brother, and have a startling encounter with bushrangers' (Oxford Companion to Australian Children's Literature, 248).
