If you will bring a dull chapter on you, duller even than all the rest, at least read it, and exonerate me.

The fact is, my dear sir, that women like Mary Hawker are not particularly interesting in the piping times of peace.

In volcanic and explosive times they, with their wild animal passions, become tragical and remarkable, like baronesses of old.

But in tranquil times, as I said, they fall into the back-ground, and show us the value and excellence of such placid, noble helpmates, as the serene, high-bred Mrs.Buckley.
A creek joined the river about a mile below the Buckleys' station, falling into the main stream with rather a pretty cascade, which even at the end of the hottest summer poured a tiny silver thread across the black rocks.

Above the cascade the creek cut deep into the table land, making a charming glen, with precipitous blue stone walls, some eighty or ninety feet in height, fringed with black wattle and lightwood, and here and there, among the fallen rocks nearest the water, a fern tree or so, which last I may say are no longer there, Dr.Mulhaus having cut the hearts out of them and eaten them for cabbage.