Henry Handel Richardson

“ With a vague gesture in the direction of the bed, she sank on a chair beside the door.
Drawing the curtains Mahony discovered a fair-haired boy of some eight or nine years old. He lay with his head far back, his mouth wide open-- apparently fast asleep.
But the doctor's eye was quick to see that it was no natural sleep. "Good God! who is responsible for this?"
Mrs. Glendinning held her handkerchief to her face. "I have never told any one before," she wept. "The shame of it, doctor . . . is more than I can bear." ”

“ Ocock was one of those people, said Richard, who only remembered your existence when he saw you.--Oh, what a blessing in disguise had been that troublesome old land sale!
The lady had stooped to Trotty, whom she was trying to coax from her lurking-place. "What a darling! How I envy you!"
"Have you no children?" Polly asked shyly, when Trotty's relationship had been explained.
"Yes, a boy. But I should have liked a little girl of my own. Boys are so difficult," and she sighed.
The horse nuzzling for sugar roused Polly to a sense of her remissness. ”

“ Nowadays, when the land round was entirely taken up, and a place like Ballarat stood within stone's-throw, it was hard to imagine the awful solitude to which the early settlers had been condemned. Then, with his next neighbour miles and miles away, Melbourne, the nearest town, a couple of days' ride through trackless bush, a man was a veritable prisoner in this desert of paddocks, with not a soul to speak to but rough station-hands, and nothing to occupy his mind but the damage done by summer droughts and winter floods. ”

“ I don't care what becomes of him. The sooner he dies the better!"
"Compose yourself, my dear lady. Later you may regret such hasty words. --And what has this to do with the child? Come, speak out. It will be a relief to you to tell me."
"You are so kind, doctor," she sobbed, and drank, with hysterical gurglings, the glass of water Mahony poured out for her. "Yes, I will tell you everything. It began years ago--when Eddy was only a tot in jumpers. It used to amuse my husband to see him toss off a glass of wine like a grown-up person ”

“ And that pretty, pretty woman!" cried Polly, and drove her thoughts backwards: she had seen no hint of tragedy in her caller's lovely face. However, she did not wait to ponder, but asked, a little anxiously: "But you'll go, dear, won't you?"
"Go? Of course I shall! Beggars can't be choosers." "Besides, you know, you MIGHT be able to do something where other people have failed."
Mahony rode out across the Flat. ”

“ The whitewashed walls were smoke-tanned and dotted with millions of fly-specks; the dried corpses of squashed spiders formed large black patches; all four corners of the ceiling were festooned with cobwebs.
Saunderson shrugged his shoulders. "This was his den when he first was manager here, in old Morrison's time, and he's stuck to it ever since. He shuts himself up in here, and won't have a female cross the threshold --nor yet Madam G. herself." ”

“ Glendinning's failing is well known. Only the other day, I heard that more than one medical man had declined to have anything further to do with the case. It's a long way out, and fees are not always forthcoming. HE doesn't ask for a doctor, and, womanlike, she forgets to pay the bills. I suppose they think they'll try a greenhorn this time."
Pressed by Polly, who was curious to learn everything about her new friend, he answered: "I should be sorry to tell you, my dear, how many bottles of brandy it is Glendinning's boast he can empty in a week."
"Drink? Oh, Richard, how terrible! ”

“ Glendinning became once more the pretty woman frankly concerned for her appearance. "I don't know how I look, I'm sure," she said apologetically, and raised both hands to her hair. "Now I will go and rest for an hour. There is to be opossuming and a moonlight picnic to-night at Warraluen." Catching Mahony's eye fixed on her with a meaning emphasis, she changed colour. "I cannot sit at home and think, doctor. I MUST distract myself ”