Broad Arrow by Caroline Leakey — Read

AT the date of this story's commencement Mr. Evelyn had been one year in England, and six months prior to that date he had lost his wife in Van Diemen's Land. The suddenness of the event preyed on his already impaired health; and listening to the solicitations of his brother and only child, he resigned his chaplaincy in Hobart Town in order to return to England to seek that repose for himself which has jaded energies so much required, and for his daughter those advantages which colonial education but sparely afforded.

The arrival of their Tasmanian cousin was looked forward to with no small excitement by the D'Urban family. Bridget D'Urban, ever full of fun and drollery, had many a good-natured laugh in store for all the uncouth barbarities she expected in the young colonist; while her mother had secret misgivings that her girls would find no beneficial associate in one who must have imbibed a wrong view of things from unavoidable contact with the mixed and sometimes questionable society of Van Diemen's Land.