An Australian Lassie
Betty Bruce is twelve, hot-tempered, and certain she was born into the wrong family. Her people are crowded into a weather-board cottage called The Gunyah, in bush country on Sydney’s north shore, kept poor by a father who has managed one published book. Beyond the iron gates stands Dene Hall, where the children’s irascible grandfather, a sea captain, has not spoken to his daughter in the seventeen years since she slipped away to marry that writer. Betty means to get at the money and tries for it sideways, once by visiting the old man dressed as a ghost. Then John Brown arrives at Wygate School, station-bred, unbeatable at arithmetic, and installed at Dene Hall as the captain’s grandson though no blood connects them. Turner lets her children fight, scheme, and run off to the city to make a fortune.
