Cirrus@Austlit

A husband of one year engages in a small flirtation on his train journey home. He is mortified the next day to find the girl is his wife's friend who has come for a visit. Guilt and jealousy are very lightly skirted in this slight but cheery piece. (PB)

Defence of old maids and the story of one who met her man in a business connection when 21 years old, but he died before he spoke to her of his feelings. She chose never to marry but to be a happy old maid. Slight. (PB)

Neighbours quarrel over a dog's noise, but the shoe changes when the ownership of the dog is swapped. Humour/exemplary. (PB)

A plain man's rendition in images of the sublime and the ridiculous, based on what it was to hear Rubenstein play in New York. Engaging.(PB)

English hunting race story and the narrator's half-bred mare wins against a racehorse - with a little strategy at the finish. Light. (PB)

A wife's suspicions of her husband's gambling habits are wrong - A church bazaar swallowed his money. (PB)

Lord Wolseley recalls his meeting with US war correspondent Henry M. Stanley in Ashantee. (PB)

A clerk's absence to bury his father is questioned when the father turns up in person. Humour. (PB)

In France, a merciless duellist is killed by the sabre for his savage deeds. (PB)

English crime tale. A husband decides to surprise his wife with some jewellery on their first wedding anniversary. On the suburban train on his way home he falls into conversation with a fellow traveller whose conversation is interesting and who manages to swap bags during the trip. Theft takes the place of the anniversary present. Light and cheery nevertheless. (PB)

Western US cowboys discover an old wagon-trail grave, and the roughest member of the crew carves a headboard for the unnamed child. Pathos/sentiment, though not as powerful as some earlier ones. (PB)

English society tale. A meeting at a hunt between the beautiful Lady Mangrove and a handsome former admirer provokes her husband's jealousy. It grows in the following weeks and results in Lord Mangrove attempting to frustrate a supposed elopement ...It is he who is exposed to his guests and he apologises to his wife for capturing her maid and suspecting her. (PB)

A clever but poor girl, original in her activities, attempts to teach a class of Chinamen about the Christian god using a rose as an example. Humour. Interesting for the little preamble which presents a case for her doing unusual things 'respectably' - and then describes an interaction between a white girl and a Chinaman. (PB)

Two prisoners released from gaol arrive in a valley, one seeking revenge on the man who had them imprisoned for his deed and one seeking only his family and life. The revenger meets their betrayer by chance, goes to stay at his new station, meets a drunken ex-clerk who had helped in the forgery, the betrayer's aunt who accuses him of poisoning her and is in the house when the betrayer is murdered. The drunk reforms and the aunt is accused at the inquest. (PB)

A meeting of sailors in the Waterloo Hotel in York Street, Sydney, elicits a reminiscence of 1854 from an old sailor. After his arrival from the Bendigo goldfields in Sydney, the spending of his money and partial recovery from alcohol, he was recruited with a number of sailors for a private voyage to a North Pacific island. The captain had been a castaway on an island there and discovered a cave of gold with the help of a maiden who found him. They return but have to fight their negro cook and the islanders who discover their object. They escape with the girl and their lives. The captain subsequently marries her and they settle at Port Mackay (Queensland?). Tale of buried treasure, native taboo and unsuccessful attempts to seize it. Rumours of much gold in the fabulous islands of the Pacific etc. Romance/adventure. (PB)

A man leaves his recently married wife, a widow, when her dream values him at ten shillings a bunch. Humour. (PB)

Domestic tale. Mrs Jones is tempted to hyphenate their name but Jeptha Jones ridicules the idea. Tiff. Humour. (PB)