or flower-like beauty. There was character in the strongly
marked, arching brows, and in the serene, straight glance of the large,
grey eyes. Further, there was indication that their owner would not be
lacking in tact or fixity of purpose; two qualities usually found hand
in hand. Her hair, though dark, was many shades removed from black, and
of it she possessed a more than bountiful supply.

She came of a good old Colonial family, but had been educated in
England. Well educated, too; thanks to which salutary storing of a mind
eagerly open to culture, many an otherwise dull and unoccupied hour of
her four years of married life--frequently left, as she was, alone for a
whole day at a time--was turned to brightness. Alone? Yes, for she was
childless.

When she had married bluff, hot-tempered Tom Carhayes, who was nearly
fifteen years her senior, and had gone to live on a Kaffrarian stock
farm, her acquaintance unanimously declared she had "thrown herself
away." But whether this was so or not, certain it is that Eanswyth
herself evinced no sort of indication to that effect, and indeed more
than one of the aforesaid acquaintance eventually came to envy her calm,
cheerful contentment. To the expression of which sentiment she would
reply with a quiet smile that she supposed she was cut out for a
"blue-stocking," and that the restful seclusion, not to say monotony, of
her life, afforded her ample time for indulging her studious tastes.

After three years her husband's cousin had come to live with them.
Eustace Milne, who was possessed of moderate means, had devoted the few
years subsequent on leaving college to "seeing the world," and it must
be owned he had managed to see a good deal of it in the time. But
tiring eventually of the process, he had made overtures to his cousin to
enter into partnership with the latter in his stock-farming operations.
Carhayes, who at that time had been somewhat unlucky, having been hard
hit by a couple of very bad seasons, and thinking moreover that the
presence in the house of his cousin, whom he knew and rather liked,
would make life a little more cheerful for Eanswyth, agreed, and
forthwith Eustace had sailed for the Cape. He had put a fair amount of
capital into the concern and more than a fair amount of energy, and at
this time the operations of the two men were flourishing exceedingly.

We fear that--human nature being the same all the world over, even in
that sparsely inhab