Looranna by M.A. Mccarter — Read

In a lowly coal-miner's cottage, situated on the brow of a hill, away where Newcastle kisses the sea, within a few miles of Sydney, the mother city of the great Australian Federated States—Newcastle, the greatest coal-mining centre of the southern world, upon which the great commerce of the southern seas depends for its coal supply, and wherefrom the steam monsters of the rails find their propelling force.

When the mouths of these great coal caves are closed by strikes or any other cause, commerce is almost at a standstill; trade is paralysed, and the streets are in darkness. In this lowly cottage Mrs. Allen, a pale-faced woman, pulls aside a clean, though shabby, well-darned curtain, and she gazes anxiously through the window.