"I have never seen any white ants here," said Prudence, who called the native Australians blacks when she spoke of them and a-borry-jines when she read about them. "Uncle Jim says there are a great many in India, and they eat his books." Jerry looked bewildered. "Of course there's lots of 'em in India," he said, "but I never heard of them eating books." "I expect your uncle means that they devour novels," suggested Mollie. "No, he doesn't. He says they eat a tunnel through all his books from one end to the other. And they stuff up the keyholes." "Your uncle's aunts must be quaint old birds then," Jerry said unbelievingly. "But they aren't birds at all, they're _ants_," cried Grizzel. A loud cackle from Hugh, whose grin had been growing wider and wider, now interrupted the discussion: "Ho, ho, ho! One of you is talking about aunts--your Aunt Maria--and the other is talking about ants--the beasts that go to the sluggard," he exploded. "You _are_ a pair of muffs! He, he, he!" "'Go to the ant, thou sluggard'," Mollie quoted slowly. "Oh--_Jerry_--" It took them some time to recover from this little misunderstanding. "Next time I see Aunt Mary--bites like red-hot nippers--oh dear!" "Well, come on and dig now," Hugh ordered at last, twisting a cord neatly round his last peg as he spoke. "If you go on laughing like that you'll soon begin to cry, and this mine will never get started." Thus adjured they rolled up their sleeves and set to work. Pickaxes were of no use in that sandy soil. The boys used their spades, and the girls carried the turned-up sand to the creek, washing it with the utmost care in the cinder-sifter. But their efforts met with no success. Neither gold nor anything else, except pebbles, rewarded their toil. "It's always like that," Hugh said at last, sitting down on the edge of the hole they had dug. "Gold is the most gambly stuff imaginable. We know a lady who was as poor as a washerwoman one day, and then at breakfast one morning she got a letter to say her goldmine shares had struck a reef, and she got so rich she simply didn't know what to do with her money. She came to see Papa about it. She was an old maid, so naturally there wasn't much she wanted. You never know who is going to be rich and who poor, with a goldmine. Some of these pebbles are quite valuable," he continued, running a handful of shingle through his fingers, "there are amethysts and opals and topazes in some river beds. I have never found one myself, but I've picked up some pretty good crystals." "I think I'll go and look for mine," said Grizzel. "I hid it in a tree near here. I am tired of gold-digging, and my feet are hot. I shall dabble them in the creek and eat an orange."