aid with spirit. "It was not a Kafir
murder. It was a killing by Burghers, and, though God knows
I utterly condemn all such doings, it cannot be denied that
there was as much on the one side as on the other."

The due request was proffered.

"It is not a tale to carry abroad," observed the old lady.
"It concerns some of my family. The woman was Christina van
der Poel, a half sister of my second husband, and what I am
now telling you is the confession of Koos van der Poel, her
brother, on the day he died. I remember he was troubled
with an idea that he would be buried near her, and that she
would cry out on him from her grave to his."

The suggestion, as you must agree, quite justified Katje's
moving closer to me.

"It was like this," resumed the Vrouw Grobelaar, after an
expressionless glance at the two of us. "Christina was a
wild fanciful girl, with an eye to every stranger that off-
saddled at the farm, Katje; and she had barely a civil word
to waste on a bashful Burgher. I can't say I ever saw much
in her myself. She was a tall young woman, with a face that
drew the eye, as it were; but she was restless and unquiet
in her motions, and, to my mind, too thin and leggy. But
men have no taste in these things; and if Christina had
been of a decent turn, she might have had her pick of all
the unmarried men within a day's ride, and there used to be
some very good men about here.

"But, as I said, she kept them all on the far side of the
fence, and for a long time their only comfort was in seeing
no one else take her. Till one day a surprising thing
happened.

"A tall smart man rode into the farm one afternoon and hung
up his horse on the rail. He swaggered with his great
clumping feet right into the house, and went from one room
to another till he found the old father.

"'Are you Mynheer van der Poel?' he asked him in a loud
voice, standing in the middle of the chamber with his hat
on his head and his sjambok in his hand.

"'I am,' answered the other.

"'I am John Dunn,' said the stranger. 'I have a store at
Bothaskraal, and I am come to ask for your daughter to
wife.'

"'An Englishman?' asked the old man.

"'To be sure,' said the stranger.

"'But where have you seen the girl?' asked Mynheer van der
Poel.

"'Oh, in many places,' replied the Englishman, laughing.
'We are very good friends, she and I, and have been meeting
every evening for a long time. Indeed, you have to thank me
for giving you a ch