e told me so. She resented very much
a letter she received from him in reply to hers telling him she could
not marry him; and moreover she told me that even if she cared ever so
much for a man, she would never marry a Roman Catholic."

"I don't think she will ever marry, Lizzie, so it is no use my indulging
in ridiculous visions; she is too much attached to her father to ever
leave him. And you will always be mistress of Ocho Rios and master of
Tom Gerrard."

Mrs Westonley laughed, and pulled his short, dark-brown, pointed beard.
"Silly man! I know better than that; and I know also that Douglas Fraser
would be pleased to see Kate become Mrs Tom Gerrard, for he likes you
immensely. Now, promise me you will ask her?"

Gerrard rose and made his escape to the door, then he turned.

"I'll think it over, you match-making creature," and then he went off
to the stockyard, apparently unconcerned, but secretly delighted at what
his sister had told him, and she smiled to herself, for she knew that
when he spoke of thinking about a matter, he had already decided.

Black Bluff Creek was a purely alluvial gold-field, and was in the very
zenith of its prosperity when, towards sunset, Randolph Aulain looked
down upon it from an ironstone ridge a mile distant from the workings.
It had been given its name on account of a peculiar formation of black
rock, which rose abruptly from the alluvial plain, and extended for
nearly two miles along and almost parallel with the creek, from the bed
of which so much gold was being won by two hundred diggers. The top
of this wall of rock was covered with a dense scrub, and presented a
smooth, even surface of green, which even in the driest seasons never
lost its verdant appearance. Some of the diggers had cleared away
portions of the scrub, and erected sun-shelters of bark, under which
they slept when their day's toils were over, and enjoyed the cool night
breeze--free from the miasmatic steam of the valley five hundred feet
below. Almost on the verge of the steep-to wall of rock was a large and
regularly built "humpy," in which Douglas Fraser and Kate lived. The
ascent to the summit of the bluff was by a narrow path that had been
found by Kate in one of the many clefts riven in the side of the
black-faced cliff, and her father's mates had so improved it with pick
and shovel that Aulain could discern it quite easily.

As he walked his horse down into the camp, the diggers had just ceased
work for