AustLit

Set in the city and on a deserted diggings. Ned Braban is released from Pentridge gaol to be met by his drunken old mother and the news of the death of his street-girl sweetheart. His resolve to reform nearly dies but a deathbed promise to her makes him accept a fellow-traveller's offer at Coburg railway station to work in the country. A reunion with his real parents from whom he had been stolen years before is made through his benefactor's kindness and the return from the Californian goldfields of the father who had deserted his drunken foster-mother years before. Mag's attempt with the help of a villain to kill this husband for his gold while disguised as an old couple is foiled by her accomplice. She has no death-bed repentence. Includes a faithful poor woman; reunited family return to England. (PB)