AustLit

Tale of reputation regained and romance pursued. A stranger to a small town, obviously poor, takes a job with a farmer. Once it is suspected he is a reformatory boy he is teased until he thrashes his tormentors. He is moved by kindness from the crippled daughter of the house but resigns several months after rescuing her. She is healed by a visiting doctor but refuses all suitors until she recognises the reformatory boy in a passing stranger, he proposes and she accepts. He was born in England and came to Melbourne with his mother's new husband who forced him into the crime for which he was convicted. A determination to reform and an inheritance from England raised him to the status he then enjoyed. The couple sail for England when married. (PB)