AustLit

Romance between a jovial bachelor and an 'old maid'. Begun seven years before through a chivalric act on the train to Wodonga, a meeting in Melbourne clinches the affair - with a little help from a lady. Light; romance in prosaic guise. (PB)

A jealous husband nearly murders his maid and a neighbour's coachman through circumstantial evidence. Slight; reform tale. (PB)

'Realist' account of a supernatural event. Two bank clerks avert a robbery and save one of them from a robber's gun when they share a dream of the peril facing him. Though their lodgings are far apart, their dreams communicate the danger and a warning. Slight. (PB)

Domestic tale. A husband's complaints about his wife's cooking as compared to his mother's are stopped by a clever stratagem which involves asking the mother to stay. Slight tale of women's management of men. (PB)

A lost will makes a young lawyer rich - but deprives his beautiful cousin of her inheritance. He resolves to locate the will - and discovers his cousin has hidden it herself in her sleep. He also discovers she is the woman he vowed to marry four years before. (PB)

A domestic tiff in a train leads to some gentle words from the wife. (PB)

US frontier tale. One of a party of emigrants to California is captured by Indians near the Platte River. A dusky maiden helps him escape - and reveals herself to be a white woman who he helps to escape ... and marries. Basic plain tale. (PB)

Romance between a secular man and a Methodist minister's daughter. Faith finally receives her father's blessing after a revival meeting. The father himself was unaware of the permission he gave - through mistaking the 'faith' he was promising. Slight; plot a little overworked. (PB)

Involved tale of mystery and romance. A reclusive gentleman rescues two ladies from the tide and falls in love with the beautiful Irene Grahame. Her father refuses permission to marry because of a shameful secret - and is soon after murdered. With the help of a London detective the real murderer and the real victims are uncovered, Grahame is found alive and his return rescues his daughter from the brain fever her discovery of the shameful secret has caused. Involvement of a Polish conspirator and his secret society with the blackmailing 'keeper of the shameful secret' complicate the plot further. (PB)

Romance set in India. An heiress' choice of suitors depends on the outcome of a steeplechase - but to the winner do not always go the spoils. (PB)

Somerton Roach breaks into a country residence determined to rob it, but discovers an old man nearly dying and promises to help him make out a new will disinheriting his nephew who his keeping him prisoner until he dies. In fact, Roach discovers to help him make out the will but together they rescue the prisoner. When the nephew discovers the old man's absence he - with his servant - announce that the old man had died and with the help of a discredited doctor obtain another corpse to bury in his place. At the reading of the will the uncle himself appears; his nephew succumbs to shock and dies in the grip of D.Ts; and Roach and his friend marry their sweethearts, Roach becoming the old man's heir. Sub-plot involving woman who had loved Roach but give him up for a rich richer suitor - the true nephew - at her mother's insistence. (PB)

Words on meaning of Christmas, New Year and celebration. (PB)