AustLit

Beautifully written and realised tale. Kitty Craven and Beatrice Rodier, young girls sharing factory sewing work and a room in Melbourne, become very close friends. Kitty is the daughter of a drunken dishonest racehorse trainer and Beatrice the orphaned daughter of a scapegrace father and genteel mother, still hopeful of contact from her mother's family. After an idyllic day together Beatrice falls ill and eventually dies, and Kitty is bereft. When approached by an agent of Beatrice's uncle, she takes on Beatrice's identity to evade her father and when she is adopted as John Heydon's niece at Yalanga station finds it hard to admit to the change. She admires and loves his wife Amy and is herself loved by a neighbouring 'colonial experience' youth, Malleson. But it is the well-travelled Paul Roscairne who holds her interest from their first encounter at a country horse race. The treatment of Aborigines on northern stations, kangaroo hunts, and lovers' misunderstandings follow, but most shocking is the return of scheming father, Wild Craven ... Rather than submit to his blackmail she leaves Yalanga and works alone in Melbourne, Paul never ceasing to search for her. She is injured in a fire saving a child and reconciliation follows before she dies. (PB)