Cirrus@Austlit

Set in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda and a small mining settlement in the Victorian bush after the Crash. A wealthy family, the Wiltons, are forced out of their elegant house by the bank crash. Mr Wilton and his son Edwin, together with unemployed bricklayer Robert Angel go to the goldfields to try and restore their fortunes. Angel is the fiancee of Wilton's maid Matty, he saves pretty roving Grace Wilton from dorwning at St Kilda and later rescues Mr Wilton from a mining cave-in. Mrs Wilton and Blanche resent the family's fallen fortunes and are ashamed of father and brother prospecting - but Mrs Wilton learsn to value Mr Wilotn in absentia. Meanwhile Grave falls for Frank Arnott, nephew of the family's new friends Col and Mrs Lawrence. The Wilton men and Angel go prospecting with him and all strike it rich. Edwin falls in love with the beautiful Miriam Gray but she is engaged by her father's wish to philandering doctor Eustace Ambrose. An old drunken miner murders the doctor in revenge for his wife's death years before; an old maid driven to drink and bad temper by his desertion of her in her youth after a false marriage is redeemed by Mrs Lawrence. Happiness eventually comes to all in this well-written tale. Discussion of taxation in Vicotria, Civil Service retrenchment, free trade and protectionism, labour rights, aid to the unemployed, poverty, crime. (PB)