AustLit

The stage faux pas that ensue from the leading lady reading her part cause anguish to the prompter but please the audience. Humour. (PB)

Beautiful but flirtatious Bertha Chesney accidentally reveals her heart to the man she loves but feared she had driven away. Light romance with denoument at the Melbourne opera. (PB)

US tale of an art critic whose blunt criticisms provoke the artist to throw him through a painting, and the critic to bring a legal charge against him. Humour. (PB)

Australian suburban romance. A woman mistakes a fellow guest for his cousin who had treated her badly the previous summer during a Launceston holiday. Once the mistake is revealed, romance quickly follows - much to the delight of their recently-married hosts. Pleasantly domestic. (PB)

A retired US merchant's wife discovers that her doctor does not think she is ill and refuses to see him for a year - thus having a year's health. Humour - of the woman as hypochondriac genre. (PB)

A question to a farmer proves to two ministers that the congregation is unlikely to understand the phrase. Humour. (PB)

A teacher visiting a married friend in Woodside minds the house for a day. She nearly loses the silver to a tramp and has her friend's watch stolen by a gentleman who introduces himself as her friend's brother and discusses Dickens. The arrival of the true brother reveals all - but romance and eventually the watch are recovered. Interesting, light tale. (PB)

An honest hardworking station manager wins the hand of the English owner's daughter and her father's approval. Thus he learns the hatred of the owner's dissipated nephew who plants a stolen cheque in his desk, has him dismissed and steals the letter to his fiancee. The nephew meets him at the rendezvous specified therein and stabs him - only recognizing then the depths of his iniquity ... competently written; British and class sentiments with honour above money etc. (PB)

A widower's intrigues separates the governess he covets from the man she loves but on his deathbed he reveals the truth, and she is discovered teaching school near Melbourne. Sketchily written. (PB)

On the memories recalled by old letters - many of them better left in oblivion. Contrasting feelings in the sketch. (PB)

Two brothers and the faithfully married couple who followed them from England live reclusively on the cliffs of Port Phillip Bay. A detective from England comes to arrest one of them for the murder of his uncle but his brother convinces the man that he is not there. When he goes to find his brother he dicovers him dying - and he confesses that he did indeed kill the old man for his money. Tale of brotherly love; a strong 'mood' piece; dark and tedious. (PB)

A Jewish pawnbroker in Grosswardein, Pesth (Europe), accidentally comes into possession of a rare black pearl. The story of the pearl comes out when he is arrested in Vienna. Brief anecdote. (PB)

A young man's complaints about his employer in a barber's shop cease when the man in the next chair stands up ... Humour. (PB)