Cirrus@Austlit

Mock horror story. An Englishman returning from Paris meets an undertaker on the Dover to London train and in the course of being told of a ghoulish experience he is finished of money, watch etc. Humorous; effective.(PB)

Two letters, one dated 1882 introducing the one dated 1082, purportedly a love letter revealing the constant experience of love. Very unconvincing. (PB)

In Monte Carlo a gambler steals a gold piece from a sleeping beggar girl to play roulette. He breaks the bank and returns to the child - but too late for she is dead in the sunshine. (PB)

US romance of north and south. A Union officer meets a Virginia maiden when they quarter themselves at her clergyman father's house - though he is a Confederate sympathiser. Union and Confederate meet for a week and then not for six years in Philadelphia when the war is over and the officer a destitute alcoholic. She helps him recover and he spends 10 years in California proving himself before he asks her to marry him ... Competent. (PB)

Four men, two brothers, their cousin and the narrator share owndership of a Victorian station in 1865. The narrator brings his mother and sister out from England to join him and all three relatives fall in love with her. She agrees to marry Frank Wayne but some time later he is drowned. Only a somnambulistically completed painting by the artist cousin, Gerald, reveals that it was fratricide ... Well-written but not exceptional. (PB)

A father rushes home to his dying baby. Pathos. (PB)

Australian romance of misunderstanding and separation. The narrator, a widow, takes a position as companion to a young heiress. The girl is to be married soon but a misunderstanding involving a former suitor and a lost letter parts the lovers - and only after much suffering are they reunited in Verona. Slight. (PB)

A farmer obtains a lawyer's 'opinion' and profits by it. Humour and horse sense. (PB)

A rabid dog terrorises a town until it is shot. (PB)

A town's alcoholic doctor is persuaded by a local gentleman squatter's brother to assist in his impersonation of the dying man so as to gain control of his estate. A young doctor arrives in town - the squatter's son who he had quarrelled with and wanted to restore to his inheritance. Luckily the older doctor relents, and the younger one claims his rights and a wife. (PB)

A country resident overcomes his own fear of burglars but only removes his wife's when they mistake her brother for a thief one night and attack him accordingly ... Humour. (PB)