g, and never did she
hurl her weighty moralities over so wide a scope.
Eventually she lapsed into criticism, and announced that
the art of dying effectively was little practiced nowadays.

"I hate to see a person slink out of life," she said. "Give
me a man or a woman that knows all clearly to the last, and
gives other people an opportunity to see some little way
into eternity. After all, there's nothing more in dying
than changing the style of one's clothes, and even the most
paltry folk have some consideration as corpses. I can't see
what there is to be afraid of."

"I don't think that," observed Katje. "Even if it wasn't
that I was soon to be dead and buried, the whole business
seems horrible. Fancy all the people crowding round to look
at you and cry, while they talked as if you were already
dead. When Polly Honiball was dying, old Vrouw Meyers asked
her if she could see anything yet. Ugh!"

The old lady shook her head. "That's not the way to look at
it," she replied. "A good death is the sign of a good life;
or anyhow, that's how people judge it. It's as well to give
no room for talk afterwards, Katje. And as for the mere
death, no good Christian fears that. Why, I have known a
man seek death!"

"Did he kill himself?" inquired Katje.

"Kill himself! Indeed he didn't. That would be a crime, and
a dreadful scandal. No, he took death by the hand in a most
seemly and respectable way, and his family were always
thought the better of for it.

"Yes, I'll tell you about it. It will be a lesson to you,
Katje, and I hope you will think about it and take it to
heart.

"The man I am talking about was Mynheer Andries van der
Linden, a most godly and prosperous Burgher, whose farm was
on the High Veld. All the days of his life he walked
uprightly, and married twice. His sons and daughters were
many, and all good, save for one sidelong skellum, Piet,
his second son, who afterwards went to live among the
English. He had cattle and sheep at pasture for miles, and
a kerk on his land, where his nephew, the Predikant, used
to preach. And by reason of his sanctity and cleverness
Andries grew richer and richer till the Burghers respected
him so much that they made him a commandant and a member of
the Church Council.

"All prospered with him, as I was telling you, until one
day it seemed as if God's hand had fallen from him. He was
smitten with a disease of which not the oldest woman in the
district had ever seen the lik