cter.

Whilst the hymn was being sung, the probationer's earnest eyes rested
as often on the yellow-haired girl at the harmonium as on his
particular charge, the dusky choir. The eleven girls stood in a
crescent, some modest and demure enough, but others looking bold, their
wanton, roving eyes and generously developed figures being much in
evidence. The youngest girl might have been twelve years of age, and
the eldest twenty. The latter, a girl named Martha Kawa, was of a much
lighter colour than any of her schoolmates, but her physiognomy was of
the usual Kafir type. Her father was an Englishman, and her mother a
Gaika Kafir; she had passed her childhood in a native hut, and when,
five years previously, she was sent to the mission, she was in a
condition of absolute savagery. In the mission school her Aryan blood
told; she kept easily ahead of the other girls, and took all the best
prizes.

The hymn over, the girls curtsied "good-night" to the missionary and
his wife, and went to the dormitory escorted by the junior teacher.
This room was the very picture of neatness. The whitewashed walls were
decorated with Biblical pictures and illuminated texts, and the beds,
with blue counterpanes and snow-white linen, were without crease or
wrinkle. On each bed, near the foot, the occupier's shawl was folded,
and the manner of folding varied considerably. Small prizes were given
for the best folding designs, and considerable individuality was shown
in the competition. Several of the designs were marvels of ingenuity,
and indicated a true artistic faculty.

In a few moments, eleven dusky heads were reposing on eleven snowy
pillows.

II.

The Reverend Gottlieb Schultz was far more intellectual and cultivated
than the average of his class. Sent to labour in the Lord's Vineyard in
reclaiming the heathen of South Africa, immediately after his
ordination as a minister of the German Evangelical Church, at the age
of twenty-four, he had spent thirty-five years at his task. His wife
Amalia, selected for him by the Missionary Society, was sent out under
invoice five years after his arrival. She had thus been his helpmeet,
and a faithful one, for thirty years. Although childless, she was of a
placid and contented disposition; so much so that her smile became
rather wearisome from its very continuousness.

The good old missionary had outlived many illusions, and of the few
still remaining, the larger proportion related to the Fatherl