AustLit

Phyllis meets her Uncle Dick at a cricket match. Noticing one of the players, Langdon Temperley, she tells her uncle how she persuaded Langdon to dress as his twin sister, Dulcie, after Dulcie sprained her wrist before a school cricket match. The trick was discovered and Mabel Campbell, the school principal, was furious before her sense of humour took over. Something Phyllis says about Mabel sends her Uncle Dick hurrying away to see the principal and Phyllis suspects she knows the reason why.

Cassie Innes is determined her husband's lover, Fanny Howe, will not gain possession of her house after she dies. On her deathbed she tells her daughter, Dot, to burn the house down. Dot promises to do so, so that her mother can die happy, but she does not carry out her promise. Her mother's apparition begins to appear to Dot when she is asleep, and one night Dot watches her set fire to the house. She is rescued by the local doctor, who has befriended her, and he offers her an alternative home.

Franziska unreservedly praises this publication by A. H. Chisholm, who was also an Australian Woman's Mirror contributor. The book is concerned with birds from all over Australia, but with a special emphasis on Queensland.

Franziska concludes that, although the book is 'very rawly told in places', it is important because it is told from the convict's point of view.