Cirrus@Austlit

Scouts riding well with an army column discover the staked body of a settler tortured by Indians. (PB)

Occasional piece. Description of the annual opening and private viewing day at London's Royal Academy. Society more important than paintings. Glimpses of Mr Balfour and Mr Gladstone. (PB)

Comic domestic romance as a wife of two years alternates between leaving her husband for a six months trip to Europe or staying at home. Marital histrionics and manly patience ... (PB)

Satirical tale of an English gentleman's naivety and misadventures in trying to establish a ranch in Texas. After being swindled over cattle he decides an English rectory is more inviting. (PB)

Sentimental tale of the reformation achieved by a smuggler's son born of a delicate wife who dies at his birth. He comes to learn of his father's dishonest profession - and by saving him and his crew from a rock fall and a troop of revenue offices they promise to become honest men. (PB)

A surprise visit to an old friend results in an attack by dogs and a freezing night in a stable. Self complacency and romantic prospects are dashed. (PB)

An aspiring writer leaves his wife and their sick baby to attend the opening night of his play which proves a great success. He returns home drunk to learn of his son's death - and though success remains his life reforms. (PB)

Romance between an army officer, Captain Hilliers, and sweet Nora Despard. Their engagement is broken for a time when he mistakes Nora for her sister Nelly - who secretly marries her own officer, Lieutenant Hamilton on the eve of his departure for India. A chance encounter reveals the misconception. Family life well developed. (PB)

A confidence trick played by a Canadian grass-widow on a rich confiding young English nobleman. Snaring him with her beauty she succeeds in entrusting her jewels to him on a trip to Switzerland - and then he loses the cleverly designed collapsing casket ... (PB)

An English war correspondent cum government agent in Bombay is visited by a phantom who plays a game of chess with him, the stakes a favour to be done. The Englishman loses but in carrying out his promise - to save a woman from assault - achieves his aim of discovering a counterfeiter. (PB)

Trick and counter-trick played upon each other by the English lawyers Coke and Blackstone. (PB)

A visitor to a French lunatic asylum learns the history of a patient, a former marksman, who finally killed his beautiful show assistant on stage in a fit of jealousy. (PB)

A London bank-clerk ruins his chances of inheriting a fortune by telling a friend of his hopes in a railway carriage and treating an old man, the other occupant, rudely. (PB)

A mounted policeman McIntyre is killed by his rival for the hand of pretty Emma Moysey - a local criminal Nick Petit. Emma regrets giving Harry back his ring as soon as it is done - tempted by Nick's false diamonds. But her regret lasts a lifetime as Harry and her own brother die - and can not be returned evenby Nick's death. (PB)

The trials of sharing a house with a courting couple. (PB)