railway-platforms

Updated: May 2, 2025

She is more necessary to him than Eppie to Silas Marner; she is a continual negotiator of peace in his divided house, and 'in this she could not have displayed more courtier-like sagacity had she been an old-world changeling with centuries of experience respecting rich fathers of uncertain testamentary inclinations. In her limited knowledge of things outside Piper's Hill, 'street-crossings and railway-platforms presented themselves to her in the light of shocking and mysterious man-traps.... The wistful, yearning look that gave her eyes so touching an expression in the setting of her small freckled face never gave place to such a fulness of satisfaction as when her father, her brother, and her sister were all, as it were, under her eye, and safe to remain indoors for the night.

Desmond Byrne - Australian Writers