Cirrus@Austlit

A newspaper journalist witnesses the death-bed reunion of an old man injured in a road accident and the daughter he had banished from his home years before. (PB)

An English colonel's kindness to an ignorance of etiquette in a new officer promoted through the ranks in India. (PB)

A mechanic grown rich through his inventions recalls a happy Christmas of his first marriage and his humble gift of a rocking horse to his infant son. His son died the next morning and his wife followed within a year. His second marriage was of convenience only. Tender tale with warmly intimate description of the child and the games played with his young parents. (PB)

A happy marriage is destroyed by the return of a long vanished childhood husband - first the wife's peace of mind destroyed, then her child drowned, then her husband murdered. Study of the slow canker of guilt and fear. (PB)

To share with the poor at Christmas. (PB)

Coincidence brings together a couple who refused to marry each other as arranged, despite the terms of an uncle's will leaving them a fortune if they did. But they learn to love each other when she works as a governess in his grandmother's house. (PB)

A clerk is rewarded for his long years of service by a reduction in salary ... (PB)

Romance and murder at a manor house in the early 19th century. A beautiful and innocent orphan Hester, leaves the girls' school where she was a pupil teacher to take a post as lady's companion to Miss Carruthers of Combe Manor. Miss Carruthers' nephew Gilbert Sefton has been pursuing the girl and spends a month with his aunt, winning Hester's heart and resolving to kill his aunt to claim his inheritance ... Hester is unknowingly witness to the scene and the knowledge changes her innocence forever ... (PB)

A brother reprimanded for his use of 'big words' rather than plain English. (PB)

Set in a colony neighbouring Victoria in 1863, Detective Sinclair is called in to solve an apparently motiveless murder. The kindly respected victim is surrounded by an old and affectionate friend, a hot-tempered Italian servant, a flirtatious house-keeper and a woman apparently his discarded mistress. The housekeeper's diary and the Italian's assistance help expose a villain ... (PB)

A host's practical joke on a reformed alcoholic guest earns him the disapprobation and departure of the other guests. Tale of gentleman's etiquette. (PB)