aas_, so sweetly
too, that he reminded him of an uncle of his whom he deeply revered.
Oh, oh, you should have been there! I simply didn't dare look up. I
should have disgraced myself for ever if I had."

"Well, it had its effect," protested Colvin, who was laughing over the
recollection almost as hard as Piet. "It smoothed his feathers at
once."

"Really? No, really did it?" cried Aletta, who for her part had gone
off into rippling peals.

"Rather, it did," confirmed Piet. "Oh, oh, oh! `_Is nie jou Oom nie.
Ik is die President_!' Oh, oh, oh! I shall choke directly."

And he very nearly did.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THAT OTHER KERSHAW.

Since that strange chance meeting on the platform at Park Station, life
seemed much brighter for May Wenlock.

She had come up there in a fit of the dolefullest dumps, as she herself
put it, and in fact those with whom she sojourned hardly recognised her
for the blithe, light-hearted girl she had been the year before. They
even tentatively rallied her, but she brusquely disclaimed any reason
other than that she was utterly and entirely sick of the farm, that its
eternal monotony got upon her nerves, and a very little more of it would
have driven her crazy. Yet she might about as well have stayed where
she was, for the erewhile great whirling gold town was now as a city of
the dead. All who could do so had cleared out--tumbling over each
other's heels in their eagerness to get away--as we have seen.

Of all the war-talk and excitement she was heartily sick. There was
nothing to take her out of herself, no fun, no gaiety, no life; the
streets, lines upon lines of abandoned houses and shuttered-up shops.
It was as a city ravaged by pestilence from end to end.

James Dixon, her relative's husband, was a broker, and had been a
contractor. He had been regarded of late with somewhat of a suspicious
eye--by his own countrymen that is--and dark hints were not wanting to
the effect that he stood in too well with the Government, as against
British interests. In what particular way he did so was never
formulated, but it was sufficient in those days to hint. Anyway he
remained on, serene and untroubled, what time others had fled. This, of
course, to the minds of the hinters, confirmed every suspicion.

May had never been particularly fond of these people, although she had
got on with them well enough. But then there had been plenty of outside
life and diversion. Now that she