Sisters

Guthrie Carey began life young. He was not a week over twenty-one when, between two voyages, he married Lily Harrison, simply because she was a poor, pretty, homeless little gir...

Sincerely he believed, when he was on his feet again, that his life was wrecked for ever. He did suffer from insomnia, even with his splendid sea-seasoned constitution, for mont...

Decidedly he was a coward, with all his brawn and inches; for he dared not protest straight-forwardly that all was not settled. He certainly told himself that he did not know wh...

Behold him at Redford, with his tea-cup in his hand. He was safe now from talk about the baby; but he was also cut off from the lovely Deborah, now wandering about her extensive...

Dinner was over. They had all gone up to the big drawing-room, which was the feature of the 'new part'--the third house of the series which now made one. The new part was incong...

He mentioned it next day, however. He had to; for after breakfast a letter, forwarded from Five Creeks, reached him from the baby's caretaker--the lady of whom he stood in such...

There was a moon the next night also. It did not appreciably affect him this time--down in dirty Sandridge, hobnobbing with the baby's caretaker and the general merchant, who, s...

Carey junior joined the Christmas party after breakfast, and was handed round. Mary introduced him. He was spick-and-span, with shining cheeks and a damp and glossy top-knot, an...

"'Dovedale'--DOVEDALE--hullo!" Mr Pennycuick broke the silence of his newspaper reading. "Why, isn't that--Well, upon my soul! it does seem as if some folks were born unlucky. H...

How she got into the room--the isolated big drawing-room, which somebody else, who was aware of his arrival, had directed that he was to be shown into--Mary knew not; but she wa...

Captain Carey, while leaving it to be understood that he held himself engaged to Mary Pennycuick until further orders, realised the welcome fact that in the meantime he was hono...

Mrs Goldsworthy was reconciled to her relations through her illness--the greatest peacemaker in families, save death; and for her sake they made a show of tolerating her husband...

Deb sat amid the ruins of her home. She occupied the lid of a deal packing-case that enclosed a few hundreds of books, and one that was half filled stood before her, with a scat...

There was an attic at the top of a dark flight of stairs in the suburban villa that was now the sisters' home. It contained a fireplace and a long dormer window--three square ca...

Bruce went unchained, within limits, and had a run nearly every day. Workmen came to put a railing and gate to the back verandah of his establishment, and Mrs Breen kept a fidge...

Now that she could no longer entertain, Deb refused to be entertained, much to the discontent of Frances, who pined continually for a larger and brighter life, so that the invit...

"Oh, my dear, it is simply awful! There is not a scrap of hope. Dear old Deb is the worst, because she cries--fancy DEB crying! I don't care what Francie says and does, only, if...

Rose had never been reckoned a person of importance by her family, but now that she was gone, there remained a terrible emptiness where she had been. She was one of those unself...

In her own room too, surrounded by familiar objects--the six-foot dressing-table and the nine-foot wardrobe, and the Aspinalled book-case that was a fixture, amongst other thing...

Jim Urquhart had been fighting bush fires for several days when the wind changed and carried them back over the burnt ground that extinguished them. When he rode home, dead beat...

Deb yearned to have her Australian sisters--Frances was European--with her at Redford, as in the old days; she hated to be luxuriating there without them. But for a time the hus...

Rose had written warm congratulations to her sister, without mentioning any desire for a personal interview. Ever since her marriage, she had refrained from giving invitations t...

One winter's morning Captain Guthrie Carey brought his ship into Hobson's Bay. The agents of his company sent letters to him there. He took one from the sheaf, and read it caref...

Frances Ewing was a shady name thereafter, to those "in the know". Pennycuick blood and pride notwithstanding, she seemed to lose her own sustaining self-respect when she lost t...

The shooting men were up first, to their early breakfast. It seemed to Deb a matter of course that Claud would be of this virile company; it was his saving grace as a man, when...

The first letter signed "Deborah Dalzell" was addressed, strange to say, to Guthrie Carey--not to the commander of the SS APHRODITE, via his shipping office, but to Guthrie Care...

Mary's house was a chill and meagre contrast to that of Rose, but there was nothing cold in Mary's welcome. To Deb's 'Darling! darling!' and smothering embrace of furs, the slim...

Down the middle of the big T-shaped wool-shed, in two rows of six pens each, with an aisle between them, the bleating sheep were massed. They had been driven into that aisle and...