u may think you are none of these things, but there must be
something the matter with you or you wouldn't be here."

"Too true!" thought April, but smilingly answered, "There doesn't seem
much wrong with you!"

"Oh, there is, though. Ghostie is a journalist, recovering from having
the soul trampled out of her by Johannesburg Jews. I am a singer with
a sore throat and a chronic pain in my right kidney that I am trying to
wash away with the juice of Clive's apricots and the milk from Clive's
cows."

"Nuff sed," interposed Clive. "Let's think about some grub. I've
brought back sausages for breakfast."

Meekie, the mother of the black babies, had fetched in the parcels from
the cart, and already there was a fizzling sound in the kitchen. The
rest of the household proudly conducted April to the guest-chamber.
There was nothing in it except a packing-case and a bed, but the walls
were covered by noble studies of mountains, Clive pointed out some
large holes in the floor, warning April not to get her foot twisted in
them.

"I don't think there are any snakes here," she said carelessly. "There
is an old cobra under the dining-room floor, and we often hear her
hissing to herself, but she never does any harm."

"It is better to sleep on the stoep at night," Ghostie recommended.
"We all do."

Before the afternoon April had settled down among them as if she had
lived there always. Sarle and his kisses seemed like a lost dream; the
menace of Kenna was forgotten. For the first time in her existence she
let herself drift with the tide, taking no thought for the morrow nor
the ultimate port at which her boat would "swing to." It was
lotus-eating in a sense, yet none of the dwellers at Ho-la-le-la idled.
It is true that Ghostie and _belle_ Helene were crocks, but they worked
at the business of repairing their bodies to tackle the battle of life
once more. April soon discovered that they were only two of the many
of Clive's comrades who came broken to the farm and went away healed.
Clive was a Theosophist: all men were her brothers, and all women her
sisters; but those especially among art-workers who fell by the wayside
might share her bread and blanket. They called her Old Mother Sphinx,
because of her inscrutable eyes, and the tenderness of her mothering.

She herself never stopped working, and her body was hard as iron from
long discipline. She rose in the dawn to work on her lands, hoeing,
digging her orchards,