aying at living. The sky shone brightly overhead;
around the town stood hills which no romantic scene-painter could have
bettered; the air of the man with water-cart, of the auctioneer's man
with bell, and of the people popping in and out of the shops, was the
air of those who did these things for love of play-acting on a stage.

As a matter of fact, there was nothing to worry about, in Timber Town;
no ragged beggars, no yelling hawkers, no sad-eyed, care-worn people, no
thought for to-morrow. The chimneys smoked for breakfast regularly at
eight o'clock every morning; the play of living began at nine, when the
smiling folk met in the streets and turned, the men into their offices
to play at business, the women into the shops where meat and good things
to eat were to be had for little more than love. Between twelve and two
o'clock everybody went home to dinner, and the cabs which stood in front
of the wooden Post Office, and dogs which slept on the pavement beneath
the verandahs, held possession of the streets.

But if anyone would see the beauty and fashion of Timber Town, from four
to five in the afternoon was the hour. Then wives and daughters, having
finished playing at house-keeping for the day, put on their gayest
costumes, and visited the milliners. Southern Cross Street buzzed with
gaudy life; pretty women bowed, and polite men raised their hats--just
as people do in real cities--but, as everybody knew everybody else, the
bowing and hat-raising were general, just as they are when the leading
lady comes into the presence of the chorus on the stage. Then the vision
of gossiping, smiling humanity would pass away--the shops put up their
shutters at six o'clock; the game was over for the day, and all the
chimneys smoked for tea.

Timber Town by night, except when the full moon shone, was sombre, with
nothing doing. The street lamps burnt but indifferent gas; people stayed
indoors, and read the piquant paragraphs of _The Pioneer Bushman_,
Timber Town's evening journal, or fashioned those gay dresses which by
day helped to make the town so bright, and went to bed early and slept
with a soundness and tranquillity, well-earned by the labour of playing
so quaintly at the game of life.

The hills which surrounded the little town pressed so closely upon it,
that by sheer weight they seemed likely to crush its frail houses into
matchwood. On one side mountains, some bare and rugged, some clothed
with forest, rose behind th