’Arrah! ‘tis a happy girl I am, Jimmy,’ she whispered.  ’Hush! d’ye hear the song in heart?’

He laughed at the brogue, and pressed his lips amongst her thick hair.

‘I want you for my wife,’ he said.

She clung to him closely in silence for a moment and then he raised her gently and they walked back to the tent, hand in hand.

Nearly a year later Mr. and Mrs. Done were in Melbourne together when the Petral sailed for England.  Amongst the ship’s passengers were Mrs. Donald Macdougal, her two children, and Lucy Woodrow.  Mrs. Macdougal, a wealthy and attractive widow, had sold Boobyalla, and intended to make her home in England.  Lucy was still her companion, and, bidding them farewell, Jim was glad to know that the girl was well and not unhappy.

Jim and Aurora followed the rushes for some years after their marriage, and when they settled down in a substantial house at Ballarat, Done long regretted the canvas walls and the stir and gaiety of the tented fields.

By this time Ballarat was a prim town of many churches and strong Wesleyan proclivities, and Eureka had been justified by the concession of nearly all that the diggers fought for.  One-armed Peter Lalor was a staid Parliamentarian and a stout Constitutionalist now, and the grave in which Micah Burton and the other rebels lay buried was an honoured spot.  But by this time, too, new interests had been born into Done’s life, new existences had been incorporated with his own, and he had a quaint fellowship with the youngsters, for in his heart remained a sneaking delight in the folly that is the scorn of fools.  There were people who called Joy a hoyden at forty, but she retained the invincible soul of the woman who laughs.

THE END