f all it galled him
that I should see it on this our first triumphant day. He
was very gentle and most loving, but shadows grew on his
face, and there was a track of worry between his brows that
spurred me. I knew what I had to do, now that our fortunes
were knitted, and I did it.

"The plot was a slope from the edge of the dorp to the
little spruit, not fenced nor sundered in any way from the
squalid brick which houses the lower end of Dopfontein.
Full in face of it was the location of the Kafirs; around
it and close at hand were the gross and dirty huts of the
off-colors (half-castes). The house, which was in the
middle of the plot, was a bulging hovel of green brick, no
more stately or respectable than any of the huts round
about. As our horses picked their way through the muck
underfoot, and we rode down to it, the off-colors swarmed
out of their burrows and grinned and pointed at us.

"Kornel helped me from my saddle, and we went together to
see the inside of the house. It was very foul and broken,
with the plain traces of Kafirs in each of its two rooms,
and a horrid litter everywhere. As I looked round I saw
Kornel straighten himself quickly, and my eyes went to his.

"'This is our home,' he said bluntly, with a twitching of
the cheek.

"I nodded.

"'Perhaps,' he said in the same hard tone, as if he were
awaiting an onslaught of reproach,--'perhaps I was wrong to
bring you to this, but it is too late to tell me so now. It
is not much--'

"I broke in and laughed. 'You will not know it when I have
set it to rights,' I answered. 'It shall be a home indeed
by the time I am through with it.'

"His cheek twitched yet, as though some string under the
flesh were quivering with a strain.

"'It's you and me against all the evil luck in the world,'
he cried, but his face was softening.

"I cowered within the arm he held out to me, and told him I
was all impatience to begin the fight. And he cried on my
shoulder, and I held him to me and soothed him from a
spring of motherhood that broke loose in my heart.

"Within a week we were living in the place, and, Katje, I
hope you will feel yet for some roof what I felt for that,
with all its poorness. It was the first home of my
wifehood: I loved it. I worked over it, as later I worked
over the children God bestowed on me, purging it, remaking
it, spending myself on it, and gilding it with the joy of
the work. From the beams of the roof to the step of the
door I