en remember the hard, struggling,
solitary life his has been. He's just the man to fall over head and
ears in love at middle age."

"Pho! Not he! What matchmakers women are. Bryant and May are nothing
to them. But, I say, Hilda, supposing it is as you say, why shouldn't
he go in and win, eh?"

"Do you think Violet is the sort of girl to go and end her days in a
wattle-and-daub shanty away in the wilds of Bushmanland? Come now. Do
you think for a moment she's that sort?"

"N-o. Perhaps not. But there's no reason why she should. Renshaw
might find some farm to suit him somewhere else--down here, for
instance. I don't see why it shouldn't be done. He's a fellow who
thoroughly understands things, and would get along first-rate at
whatever he turned to. If he's come into low water up there it's more
the fault of that infernal country than his own, I'll bet fifty pounds.
No, I don't at all see why he shouldn't go in and win, and, by Jove, he
shall."

"Who's the matchmaker now?" retorted his wife with a smile of conscious
superiority. "But there are several things to be got over. First of
all, I believe he must be in very low water; in fact, pretty well at the
end of his tether. That drought can't have left him much to the good.
And I am tolerably certain Violet has nothing--at least, nothing to
speak of."

"Well, that might be got over--living's cheap enough,--and here we never
get any downright bad seasons."

"Then there's the difference in their creeds."

"Pho! That doesn't count for much in these parts, where there's
precious little opportunity of running any creed in particular."

"No, unfortunately; but there ought to be," replied Woman, the born
devotee. "But the most fatal obstacle of all you seem to overlook. It
usually takes two to make a bargain."

"What! Do you mean to say she wouldn't have him? Well, that's another
story, of course. But Renshaw's an uncommonly fine follow all round--
and she might do worse."

"That I won't attempt to deny. But I'm afraid the impression left upon
my mind is that she doesn't care twopence about him."

"Only making a fool of him, eh?"

"I won't say that. Violet is a girl who has been accustomed to a great
deal of admiration, and has an extremely fascinating manner. It is
quite possible that poor Renshaw may have walked into the trap with his
eyes open."

"Not he. He isn't such an ass. She must have been trying to make a
fool of him," growl