ke nothing better than to be treated as one of
the family."

It was a tactful speech, and the girl looked thoroughly capable of
appreciating it. So, too, was her mother, who remarked:

"It's so good of you to say so, Mr Kershaw. Really, I don't know what
has come over Aletta. They don't seem to have improved at all in Cape
Town."

Colvin, to himself, opined that they rather had; indeed, exhaustively
so, remembering the weird impression of her set up within his mind by
the portraits taken before she left for that capital. He knew, however,
that the tone in which this reproach was conveyed took the sting out of
the words, which, indeed, it clean belied.

"I didn't know that your eldest daughter was even expected back, Mrs De
la Rey," he said.

"No? Aletta came back rather suddenly, and she has come back with all
sorts of notions she had better have left behind. Of course, all our
people down there belong to the Bond, and we support the Bond ourselves.
Yet politics and war-talk over and over again are not fit subjects for
girls."

"Now, mother, you are far too old-fashioned. I am going to brush you
quite up to date," answered Aletta brightly, but in a sort of caressing
tone. "And you must not start Mr Kershaw with a bad opinion of me,
like that. It isn't fair."

Colvin owned to himself that that would be difficult, inasmuch as he had
started with too good a one on sight and his own responsibility. He had
been observing her narrowly while he sat there thoroughly enjoying an
excellent supper, and already had not failed to notice that she had a
soft and perfectly refined voice and pretty ways. Unlike the others,
her English was without accent, save for the little tricks of speech by
which you may pick out a born Cape Colonist in any crowd, such as
clipping the final "r," or ever so slight a hardening of the vowel at
the beginning of the word, and others; tricks of speech which are not
unpleasing, and are, moreover, as fully prevalent among children born in
the Colony, of emigrated English parents and without a drop of Dutch
blood in them.

"But where are the other girls, Mrs De la Rey?" he asked.

"Away. They went to stay with their uncle, Piet Venter, for a few days
just before we knew Aletta was coming back. They will be home
to-morrow, or as soon as he can bring them."

"Who is that talking over there?" croaked a feminine voice from a far
corner, in Dutch--a voice that sounded both irritable and a