s plunged in smoke. Beryl, I think
we must make him put it out."

"Don't be a little barbarian, Iris," I answered, knocking the ashes out
of the offending implement. "The fact is, I was thinking of what a
blessed instrument of Providence was the prow of the _Kittiwake_ when it
knocked my sculling boat to matchwood in mid-Channel and brought me
here. That was all."

"Oh yes. You were thinking you'd like to be back in that smoky old
London of yours, and how slow we all are," retorted Iris. "Trask's
always crowding London down our throats. I hate the very sound of its
name. It must be a beastly hole. I always ask him why he doesn't go
back there if he's so fond of it."

"I should say _Mr._ Trask, Iris," I said, with a sly glance at Beryl.

"Ach!" exclaimed the child disgustedly, throwing a handful of grass
stalks at me.

After all, we were only enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon, talking
nonsense, as people will at such times--anyhow, indulging in no rational
conversation worth chronicling. And Beryl and I would engage in a
playful argument on some unimportant trifle, and Iris, with child-like
restlessness, would wander about, now throwing a stone into a water-hole
to scare a mud turtle floating with its head on the surface, or peer
about from bush to bush trying to discover a bird's nest; and at last as
the afternoon wore on we started to retrace our steps homeward.

It will always linger in my memory, that peaceful, utterly uneventful
stroll. The flaming wheel of the westering sun was drawing down to the
farther ridge as we came in sight of the tree-embowered homestead, with
a soft blue smoke-reek or two curling up into the still air. The bleat
of the returning flocks was borne to us from the distance; and,
approaching along a bush path which should converge with ours, came half
a dozen Kafirs of both sexes, walking single file, the red ochre
colouring their blankets and persons harmonising not uneffectively with
the prevailing green of the surroundings, while the full tones of their
melodious language--the deep bass of the males and the rich pleasing
inflection of women's voices as they conversed--added an additional note
of completeness to the closing beauty of a typical African day. And
within my mind was the all-pervading thought that this day was but the
beginning of many such; that the next, and the morrow, and the day
after, that would be brightened and illuminated by the same sweet
companionship-