; also other portions of the
Bible; and is capable of spitting Scripture at you on the
smallest provocation. Indeed she bubbles with morality, and
a mention of "the accursed thing" (which would appear to be
a genus and not a species, so many articles of human
commerce does it embrace) will set her effervescing with
mingled blame and exhortation. But if punishment should
come in question, as when a Kafir waylaid and slew a
chicken of hers, she displays so prolific an invention in
excuses, so generous a partiality for mercy, that not the
most irate induna that ever laid down a law of his own
could find a pretext for using the stick.

She lives in her homestead with some half-dozen of nieces,
a nephew or two, and a litter of grandchildren, who know
the old lady to the core, cozen and blarney her as they
please, and love her with a perfect unanimity. I think she
sometimes blames herself for her tyrannical usage of these
innocents, who nevertheless thrive remarkably on it. You
can hardly get on your horse at the door without maiming an
infant, and you can't throw a stone in any direction
without killing a marriageable damsel. They pervade the old
place like an atmosphere; the kraals ring with their
voices, and the Kafirs spend lives of mingled misery and
delight at their irresponsible hands.

I do not think I need particularize in the matter of these
youngsters, save as regards Katje. Katje refuses to be
ignored, and she was no more to be overlooked than a tin-
tack in the sole of your foot. She was the only child of
Vrouw Grobelaar's youngest brother, Barend Viljoen, who
died while lion-hunting in the Fever Country. At the time I
am thinking of Katje might have been eighteen. She was like
a poppy among the stubble, so delicate in her bodily
fabric, and yet so opulent in shape and coloring. She was
the nicest child that ever gave a kiss for the asking (you
could kiss her as soon as look at her), but she was also
the very devil to deal with if she saw fit to take a
distaste of you. I saw her once smack a fathom of able-
bodied youth on both sides of the head with a lusty vigor
that constrained the sufferer to howl. And I have seen her
come to meet a man--well, me, with the readiest lips and the
friendliest hand in the world. Oh, Katje was like a blotch
of color in one's life; something vivid, to throw the days
into relief.

A stranger to the household might have put down Katje's
behavior towards the Vrouw Grobelaar