afternoon
tea with the Scholar." But when the Scholar saw the dismay his simple
act had spread around him, he dissipated it with a kindly laugh and a
few reassuring words.

"Don't mind me, boys. I was only doing the civil in a purely platonic
manner. Miss Musgrave is nothing to me, nor am I anything to her. Heaven
forbid! I'm too hard a bargain for any girl. If any one of you marries
her I'll act as his best man if he asks me to, and wish him every
felicity without a thought of regret."

"Bully for the Scholar!" yelled the delighted crowd; and Miss Musgrave's
smiles were more sought after than ever.

So things went on day after day, week after week, till Miss Musgrave
became little short of an autocratic empress. But still she showed no
signs of taking unto herself a consort; she kept all men at a cousinly
distance, and those who felt intimate enough to address her as "Miss
Mary" accounted themselves uncommonly fortunate. Thus the little machine
of state worked perfectly harmoniously, and Big Stone Hole was as steady
and prosperous a settlement as need be.

Had these diggers refreshed their minds by looking back for historical
parallels, they might have been prepared in some degree for Miss
Musgrave's exit from among them, but as none of them indulged in such
retrospections the manner of it took the camp somewhat by surprise.

It was first discovered in this wise. Work was over for the day. The
Kaffirs had been searched and had returned to their kraal. Pipes
were being lit after the evening meal, and a picturesque assembly was
grouping itself in an expectant semicircle on the sun-baked turf in
front of Miss Musgrave's dwelling. She was usually outside to welcome
the first comers, and her absence naturally formed the staple topic
of conversation. Digger after digger arrived, threw himself down, and
joined in the general wonderment as to why Miss Mary wasn't there, and
at last some one hazarded a suggestion that she "must be asleep." There
was a general epidemic of noisy coughing for a full minute, and then
silence for another, but no sound from within the hut.

"Perhaps she's ill," was the next surmise.

After the etiquette to be followed had been strictly discussed, and a
rigid course of procedure set down, the Scholar got up and knocked at
the door. He received no answer, and so knocked again--knocked several
times, in fact, and then rattled the handle vigorously, but without
result.

"Better open it," said