AustLit

Examples of women's boundless curiosity and the effort men can make to stop it. Smug. (PB)

Half a crown buys an itinerant beggar's story of his life: leaving a snug English farm for Victoria's gold fields he makes money for a time, spending it freely and eventually marrying. His luck runs out, his house burns down, his wife dies and he starts to drink. He turns to begging but does not make a good living until he is lamed by being run over by a cart when drunk. His tale includes vignettes of other well-known beggars in Melbourne and throughout Victoria. Very interesting in parts; competent throughout. (PB)

A visit to her newly engaged school-friend introduces Annie Vane to the man who convinces her to break her vow never to marry. Slight. (PB)

An American stone-carver sells a backwoodsman an unbought but already lettered gravestone for his parents' grave to fulfil a stipulation in a will. The wrong inscription was irrelevant because they couldn't read. Folk humour. (PB)

A bachelor clerk living in Carlton Melbourne is roused from the bed where he is recovering from a football game with Richmond to go to lunch at his married friend's house - there to meet his true match. Portrait of a bachelor's life recommending marriage. Pleasant if pointed. (PB)

A gentleman's advertisement in the matrimonial pages of a Melbourne newspaper initiate a correspondence with a closely kept girl not yet in society. Their friendship grows and they determine to meet during her visit to a friend in the city. Their plans are nearly frustrated when the girl's guardian intercepts their letter but the girl finds them and turns up wearing pansies at the railway station - joining the pansy buttonholes of her guardian and her correspondent. Slight, pleasant. (PB)

A bachelor's skirmish with his chest of drawers while searching for a clean shirt persuades him not to propose but to break off the understanding with his girl instead. Humour. (PB)

A swain's exertions to put on a new collar and tie to visit his girl - only to discover she has influenza. (PB)

An English girl arrives in Melbourne expecting to be met by her father but discovers he is dead. Determined to earn her own living she seeks work as a governess. After two hard positions she takes a place with little Jessie whose mother takes no notice of her and whose father is never home. Whilst her mother is on holidays he returns and begins to pay Alice unwelcome attentions. She resolves to leave but sickly Jessica is dying so she postpones her departure. She is finally reunited with friends, including the loving Doctor Good. Pleasantly interesting. (PB)

A Melbourne lawyer buys a deserted house and garden in Stockton despite rumours of a ghost and the claims of the old gardener to the garden. The lawyers redoubtable housekeeper undertakes to disprove the ghost but discovers the secret of a murderous wife and grief-maddened brother instead. (PB)