AustLit

A titled lady attempts to fool her husband on April 1 by pretending to be a begger but fools the footman instead and is turned away from her own door. (PB)

A British doctor in Genoa is called in by a faithful servant to diagnose a mysteriously sick Englishman. He accidentally discovers that an orphaned girl in the household is poisoning the sick man and connects her with a conversation of revenge overheard one night. It eventuates that the invalid is the girl's father's twin brother but she has mistaken him for the brother who married and deserted her dead mother. Urged on by her grandmother she was seeking revenge. When stopped from stabbing his patient by the doctor who tells her the truth, she stabs herself. (PB)

Rhyming prose sketch of a lover who attempts suicide to win the love of his lady - with arrow-root. He succeeds. (PB)

A British steeplejack is rescued from being stranded on a cross where he had returned for a bet and was stuck by accident. His young daughter, braver than anyone in the village, takes him the rope herself. (PB)

An old mirror in a second-hand furniture shop recalls the years passed with a beautiful happy girl, her engagement, the enlistment and death of her lover as a soldier and the grief and resignation she experienced. The mirror praises her constancy in never marrying again, tending to the poor and sick. (PB)

A clerk saves his job by presenting his employer with a bunch of flowers, claiming they were left by a lady. (PB)

A young lady meets an artist at the Falls, when he kills the black snake her dog is attacking. He paints her portrait - which was bought by her father - courts and charms her, and they become engaged.

Romance fulfilled by a practical joke. A young boy Ted Barton decides to fool his sister on April 1 with a false proposal but finds it hard to tell her the truth when he sees she cares for the putative author. She writes an acceptance before he has time to tell him so the boy goes to confess to the rising young journalist he has impersonated. Fortunately the journalist has long loved Nan Barton and not proposed because he feared he was too poor to win her. The story ends happily. Humorous authorial presence, eg: 'For the first time in his life it occurred to him that boys were really a superfluous element in creation.' (PB)

Romance begins when a young woman in a new costume accepts an offer from a handsome stranger to share his umbrella. They do not speak except to exchange courtesies and she wonders if her behaviour has been proper. She twists her ankle at lunch, discovers he is the handsome new doctor, and a month later her foot and her heart are much better. (PB)

A bachelor adopts his dead sister's child and through her proposes to the woman he loves - who accepts the joint petition. (PB)

On the difficulty of teaching gratitude - but noble souls naturally express it. (PB)

English tale of courage, romance and madness. A gentle studious officer retires from the army when he discovers he cannot escape a false reputation as a coward. The reputation follows him to the hunting county where he lives and seems sure to lose him the girl he loves, until he is confronted one night by an escaped homicidal lunatic from the nearby asylum. Believing him to be a plant by his rival, the asylum superintendent, he disarms the man and returns him to the asylum. Only then does he discover his danger - but his reputation is redeemed and his lady won. Sub-plot of male friendship with a brave handsome cultured Irish doctor at the asylum. (PB)

A clergyman extracts a confession and a shilling from a miserly member of the congregation who put a button in the collection bag. (PB)

A digger on the Jim Crow goldfield recalls his childhood in Tasmania and his father's fiercely loyal gipsy who cared for him and his motherless sister. Her devotion to their dead mother led her to mother the children, and one night she saved them from a bushrangers' attack, running with them to safety and killing two bushrangers with a hatchet. Strong portrait of a fierce, 'true' woman convict and bushranging times in convict Tasmania. (PB)

Marital reunion. A poor mysterious widow and a handsome wealthy bachelor inspire village gossip - condemnatory and speculative - until a chance meeting through their occupying the same church pew causes the widow to faint. Eventually it is revealed that she is his wife who left him early in their marriage after a quarrel and whose fear of return was increased by the death of their baby soon after. He has forgiven all and with the help of their friends - the village doctor and his wife - they are reconciled. (PB)

A convicted criminal pleads his innocence of the theft of a ring - admits he was a drunkard and dissipated his inheritance but claims the ring was his mother's. He commits suicide in court just before his accuser rushes in to confess finding the ring. (PB)

Family tour of H. M Queen Victoria's marine residence on the Isle of Wight. Private tour of furnishings, decorations and decor; official gifts; family memorabilia and bedrooms; dining-room; state rooms; chapel; paintings and so on. (PB)

Near Dunnolly, a mounted trooper is forced to camp at a water-hole, by a man who goes for a midnight swim. The trooper recognises him as a nearby shanty-keeper and there follows a tale of sly-grog and an illicit still, murder, ghostly visitations, two bodies in the waterhole and a naive policeman ... (PB)

Mateship on the diggings. An insane digger loses his mate when he traps him in the mineshaft and is only prevented from murdering him by an accident with the windlass. Months later, drought having cleared the diggings of all but Shad, his ex-mate and a Chinaman, Shad resumes his attempts to kill the ex-mate - and after long hot weary days on the shaft manages to climb up, only for them both to die together. The Chinaman discovers them, and claiming an abandoned pistol, imperturbably leaves to inform the police. (PB)

On the almost universal resort to this indisposition by businessmen and ladies on a Sunday - with a recovery by afternoon. Sketch of Mr. B. eating bacon and calling for smelling salts. (PB)