Cirrus@Austlit

Humorous tale of a masculine household deserted by its elderly housekeeper and servants. The younger brother mistakes a visiting family friend and heiress for a new maid and she carries on the masquerade until they fall in love ... Lively US romance fueled with comic misunderstandings. (PB)

Anecdote of a five year-old's wisdom, advising his mother to marry again rather than look to him for support if his father died. (PB)

US romance. Adolescents of different social status are separated when their parents discover their engagement but they are faithful to each other. They meet again during the Civil War, she a nurse and he a soldier dying of fever. (PB)

A gipsy's predictions of a young man's future during a picnic nearly destroys his reputation. Only the woman he loves believes in him until a year later he reveals the gipsy to have been bribed by his rival. Pleasantly unremarkable. (PB)

An orphan is hired as lady's companion to the wealthy Mr Lancaster's mother. The arrival of his pretty ward reveals to her that she loves him and a horse accident prompts him to propose. Slight romance. (PB)

A pupil at a north-west Melbourne school dies comforted by the receipt of school merit cards. (PB)

The battle between an ocean steamer and a gale. Vivid. (PB)

A newly-married couple on honeymoon in County Kerry, Ireland, find a carrier-pigeon which becomes their own. Eventually it saves the wife when she is trapped in an old tower ... Light, occasionally reflective and improbable romance. (PB)

Winter in Picardy, France, in 1870 and a group of German officers bivouack in a French chateau. Captain Max von Rosenheim is attracted to a portrait and when he returns wounded to the chateau, falls in love with the living image (daughter of the original subject). She is already engaged to her cousin and is a patriot - but love and the secret of her birth make all things possible. Well-written and constructed romance. (PB)

A poor but beautiful belle at Newport USA becomes engaged to a rich suitor when she discovers her equally poor but true love is courting an heiress. She is drowned while bathing, and he marries his heiress. Patchy but lively and light touch of cynicism. (PB)

A Venetian palace is the scene for an Italian peasant girls' revenge on an unfaithful English artist and his newly married wife. (PB)

When a bargeman is caught stealing from a storeowner in the township of Wantamboon, between Bourke and Wilcannia, he is summarily punished rather than incur the expenses of a trial. Takes place in December 1879 when the Darling is in flood and an Adelaide steamer and barge are collecting wool bales as cargo. Strong current of authentic reminiscence. (PB)

A frontier scout kills nine Indians before they can surround and kill him where his horse lies dead. Brief. (PB)

A ship-owner's tale of the cost of the Jamaica rum he serves one of his crews is jauntily dealt with . Humorous anecdote. (PB)

Bizarre tale of a French soldier who stops at a country inn, is attracted to the keeper's step-daughter, Suzanne, and cuts off the finger of a thief attempting to rob him during the night. On his arrival home he finds his impoverished father is also missing a finger and a trial for attempted murder follows. His testimony, the sacrifice of his own finger and Suzanne's testimony free his father. He parts from Suzanne to die in Africa and she to be faithful until her death. Strange; patchy. (PB)

Anecdote of a drunk's interruption of Robert K. Ptter's temperance lecture. Probably US humour. (PB)

A Union soldier dies when he misquotes a countersign password in a drunken joke during the Civil War. (PB)

Episodic impressionistic narrative of a child's quarrel with her mother; her mother's death; removal to an aunt's care; and death in hospital from diptheria. Vivid scene of childhood abandonment albeit sentimental. (PB)

An unliterary newspaper editor's suggestions for finishing lines to a young lady's verses are finally rejected. Bathetic humour. (PB)

A kindly businessman regrets his harsh words to a clerk late to work because he has just become a father - and gives him a £100 cheque. Business and feelings combined. (PB)