The night came while they were still at their meal, and sticks were thrown on the fire to provide light.  Other diggers, attracted by the glow and the cheerful atmosphere of the party, sauntered up, and modestly disposed themselves in the shadows, where they lay smoking.  Women of any kind were few on Jim Crow, and a scene like this was sufficient to stir the deeper feelings of many of the miners, particularly those in whose hearts long absence from hearth and home had served to invest domesticity with a reverent sentimentality.

Aurora insisted on washing up, but Josh dried the dishes, while the others lit their pipes, and, lying on their backs, with knees drawn up and hands clasped under their heads, gave themselves over to quiet enjoyment of the night.  A big moon was stealing through the tree-tops; the denuded gully still lay in the lower gloom, dotted with camp-fires and illumined tents.  But Aurora threw aside her domestic mood with her apron, and reappeared as the enemy of reflection and repose.  Throned on her gin-case, where the ruddy light of the wood-fire glowed upon her, she chattered in her delectable brogue for an hour or more, the picture of animation.  Then came Mary Kyley storming upon the scene.

’Do I pay a girl the wages of a princess to run a temperance meeting among my customers?’ she cried.

‘Go away, Mother Kyley, an’ work yer own ould shebang,’ replied Aurora, ‘or else bring me fiddle wid ye, an’ give us a step on the turf!’

‘Not a step will I.’

‘Then I’ll lave divil a man in the shanty, dthrunk or dthry!’

Aurora sprang upon her box, and began to sing a rousing nonsensical song of the moment.  The chorus was caught up, and swelled in the shadows.  Waving her scarf as she had done in the dance-room in Melbourne on the night when Done first saw her, she sang again, and her clear soprano rang in the gullies like the call of a bird, and brought the miners from their tents and their arguments.  When the song ended half the diggers on Jim Crow were gathered about Burton’s camp-fire, and the loudest roar of applause came from Mary Kyley!  Presently somebody out in the crowd commenced to play a flute, and slid from a few bars of’ Home, Sweet Home!’ into a rollicking jig.  Half a dozen strong hands—­Jim’s first—­were laid upon Mrs. Ben, and she was dragged to the front.

‘Dance, alauna machree!’ cried Aurora.

The flute piped higher, a hundred voices took up the cry, and Mary was conquered.  Gathering a bunch of skirts in either hand, the big woman commenced a step.  Aurora enlivened it with quaint, melodious Irish cries, the men roared encouragement, and presently Mary Kyley was dancing with heart and soul and every ounce of energy.  Dancing was a passion with Mrs. Ben; she experienced a sort of delirium of movement once the swing of the melody took hold of her, and at such moments, despite her uncommon size, the woman became animated with a wild dignity and grace.  Now, with head thrown back and face uplifted, her crimson petticoat flashing in the firelight, she danced like something wild, till she could dance no more, and Done took her in his arms and half carried her to the log, where he fanned her gallantly with his cabbage-tree, while the audience cheered again and again.