Cirrus@Austlit

Major Kenneth Graham departs for India without giving or receiving a sign of love from his childhood friend - now a rich widow - Anne Medway. But a mysterious spirit encounter while he is on shipboard - and a false belief in his death - reveal the true state of the other's heart to each. Slight; with portrait of the self-contained passionate woman. (PB)

A visitor to London's East End sees a handsome couple living there and discovers they have devoted their lives to the poor. (PB)

A storm at sea and the parsons' various reactions to a shipwreck decide who will be the minister at an English church faster than the various sermons preached. Humorous and sentimental. (PB)

A practical joke played on a one-legged man misfires when the joker jabs the wrong leg. (PB)

Tale of the presentation of colours to an Alabama regiment by ladies at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 and the terrible losses and brave death of the colour-bearer in 1863 at the battle of Helena. (PB)

Phonetic accolade of the services offered by newspaper editors. (PB)

A new recruit is severely punished by an army court for being asleep on duty when he declared that he has fallen unconscious from fright at a ghostlike figure. Similar experiences of other soldiers and the discovery of his colonel's sleepwalking habits exculpate him and he is released and promoted. Basic tale. (PB)

A colonel's inspection of his Irish militia regiment discovers one company where captain and men are 'not on speaking terms'. (PB)

A child drowns in the river while chasing a butterfly. Pathos; impressionistic. (PB)

Tale of a white man hung for killing a convict who shot an Aboriginal man, woman and child wantonly. Jack Hepburn, the only non-convict employee on a station on Tasmania's Emu Plains, warns a convict that he considers wanton shooting of Aborigines to be murder and will shoot the convict who does so. He does, and is tried, convicted and hung - the protection of Aborigines being no defence. Concludes with the parson's judgement that Hepburn can't enter heaven if he doesn't repent - and Hepburn's inability to do so. Plain, moving tale of manly principle. (PB)

A traveller freezes to death with his horse in a blizzard on the prairies of Western USA. (PB)

A new chum on his way to join an English schoolmate, now a Victorian policeman, at a township 100 miles from Melbourne, is taken out of his by a pretended 'simpleton' and spends the night in a hut where - despite being drugged - he is woken by a beautiful girl asking for help. Reaching his friend's station he tells his adventures and hears of the dissolute life that led his formerly wealthy friend to seek oblivion in an isolated police station. The tale continues with the disappearance of a neighbouring squatter's daughter - the trooper's sweetheart - and her return home as an imbecile. Revenge of her kindappers follows, with son killing father by accident. (PB)