to the top we all stopped and halted a bit to look round.

Just then, as if he'd waited for us, the sun came out from behind the
mountain; the mists lifted and rolled away as if they had been gray
curtains. Everything showed clear out like a playhouse, the same Jim
and I used to see in Melbourne. From where we stood you could see
everything, the green valley flats with the big old trees in clumps,
some of 'em just the same as they'd been planted. The two little
river-like silver threads winding away among the trees, and far on the
opposite side the tall gray rock-towers shining among the forest edges
of the high green wall. Somehow the sun wasn't risen enough to light
up the mountain. It looked as black and dismal as if it was nightfall
coming on.

'Good-bye, old Hollow!' Aileen called out, waving her hand. 'Everything
looks bright and beautiful except the mountain. How gloomy it appears,
as if it held some dreadful secret--doesn't it? Ah! what a pleasant time
it has been for me. Am I the same Aileen Marston that went in there a
few weeks since? And now I suppose there will be more misery and anxiety
waiting for all of us when I get back. Well, come what will, I have had
a little happiness on this earth. In heaven there must be rest.'

We all rode on, but none of us seemed to care to say much. Every step we
went seemed to be taking us away from the place where we'd all been so
happy together. The next change was sure to be for the worse. What it
would be, or when it would come, we none of us could tell.

Starlight and Aileen rode together most of the way, and talked a good
deal, we could see. Before we got to the stockyard she rode over to Jim
and cheered him up as much as she could about Jeanie. She said she'd
write to her, and tell her all about him, and how happy we'd all been
together lately; and tell her that Jim would find some way to get down
to her this spring, if he could manage it any road.

'If I'm above ground, tell her I'll be with her,' says poor old Jim,
'before Christmas. If she don't see me then I'll be dead, and she may
put on black and make sure she's a widow.'

'Oh, come, you mustn't talk like that, Jim, and look to the bright side
a bit. There's a good chance yet, now the country's so full of diggers
and foreigners. You try your luck, and you'll see your wife yet.'

Then she came to me, and talked away just like old times.

'You're the eldest, Dick,' she said, 'and so it's proper for me to s