what you have done to deserve it.
But it might be worse. You might have had a wife, and then
what would you have done?'

"One is wise to honor one's parents always, but one cannot
be blind. I think my father might sometimes have spoken
less and done better for it.

"'We have talked about Christina yonder,' continued my
father, pointing at me with the stem of his pipe. 'It is a
good thing it went no further than talk.'

"'But it did,' I said quickly. 'It went much further. It
went to my promise and Kornel's; and if I am ready to keep
mine now, I shall not look to see him fail in his.'

"Ah! He never needed any but the smallest spur. Your true
man kindles quickly. At my word he sprang up and his arm
folded me. I gasped in the grip of it.

"'My promise holds,' he said, through clenched teeth.

"My father had a way of behaving like a landdrost
(magistrate) at times, and now he wrinkled his forehead and
smiled very wisely.

"'When one's bed is on the veld,' he said,' it is not the
time to remember a promise to a girl. It is easier to find
a bedfellow than a blanket sometimes. And then, I am to be
considered, and I cannot suffer this kind of thing.'

"'I think you will have to manage it,' answered Kornel.

"'Do you?' said my father. 'Well, I have nothing to give
you. Christina, come here to me!'

"Kornel loosed his arm and set me free, but I stayed where
I was.

"'Father,' I cried, 'I have promised Kornel!'

"'Come here!' he said again. Then, when I did not move,
disobeying him for the first time in my life, his face
darkened. 'Are you not coming?' he said.

"'No,' I answered, and my man's arm took me again, tight--
tight, Katje.

"'Well,' said my father, 'you had better be off, the two of
you. Do not come here again.'

"'We can do that much to please you,' answered Kornel, with
his head very high. 'Come, Christina!'

"And I followed him from my father's house. I had not even
a hat for my head.

"We were married forthwith, of course--no later than the
next day,--and the day after that I rode with my man to the
plot beside the dorp spruit to see our home that had to be.
That was a great day for me; and to be going in gentle
companionship with Kornel across the staring veld and along
the empty road was a most wonderful thing, and its flavor
is still a relish to my memory. I knew that he feared what
we were to see--the littleness and mean poverty of it, after
the spaciousness of the farm; but most o