Madame for an audience, and the nugget for a text, delivered a short
discourse.

Kitty put on a great straw hat, underneath which her piquant face
blushed and grew pink beneath the fond gaze of her lover as they
left the house together and strolled up to the Black Hill.

Black Hill no doubt at one time deserved its name, being then
covered with dark trees and representing a black appearance at a
distance; but at present, owing to the mines which have been worked
there, the whole place is covered with dazzling white clay, or
mulloch, which now renders the title singularly inappropriate. On
the top of the hill there is a kind of irregular gully or pass,
which extends from one side of the hill to the other, and was cut in
the early days for mining purposes. Anything more extraordinary can
hardly be imagined than this chasm, for the sides, which tower up on
either side to the height of some fifty or sixty feet, are all pure
white, and at the top break into all sorts of fantastic forms. The
white surface of the rocks are all stained with colours which
alternate in shades of dark brown, bright red and delicate pink.
Great masses of rock have tumbled down on each side, often coming so
close together as to almost block up the path. Here and there in the
white walls can be seen the dark entrances of disused shafts; and
one, at the lowest level of the gully, pierces through the hill and
comes out on the other side. There is an old engine-house near the
end of the gully, with its red brick chimney standing up gaunt and
silent beside it, and the ugly tower of the winding gear adjacent.
All the machinery in the engine-house, with the huge wheels and
intricate mechanism, is silent now--for many years have elapsed
since this old shaft was abandoned by the Black Hill Gold Mining