ly
deprecatory glance remained in my mind, I realised a strange impression.
It seemed that all in a moment she had thrown aside that outer crust of
reserve which she had worn for my benefit, and underneath I descried the
real Beryl Matterson. And into a very sweet and alluring personality
did my mental gaze seem to penetrate.

"Bushbuck chops, Holt," said Brian, as we sat down to supper, in the
snug, well-lighted dining-room, which in the comfort and refinement of
its appointments bore token of the hand of a presiding genius--to wit,
Beryl. "Rather out of season, buck, just now; still, we shoot one now
and then, if only as a change from the eternal sheep. Try them. New
kind of grub for you, eh?"

I did try them, and found them perfect, as indeed everything on the
table was, and this was a farm on the average scale. I have since been
at many a similar place run on a large scale where the appointments were
slovenly in comparison. But then such did not own Beryl Matterson as a
presiding goddess. Afterwards we adjourned to the stoep.

"Beryl will join us directly, Holt," said Brian, as we lit our pipes.
"She has to see to things a bit first. Girls over here have to do that,
you know. I can tell you we should come off badly if they didn't."

Later on, when I got to my room at the end of the stoep, and turned in
between snowy sheets, I appreciated what some of the aforesaid "seeing
to things" on Beryl's part involved.

"I expect the governor and George'll sleep at Trask's to-night, and turn
up first thing in the morning," declared Brian as it waxed late. And
Beryl, who had long since joined us, concurred.

It was wholly delightful as we sat there chatting, in the soft night
air--the range of hills opposite silvered and beautiful in the
moonlight, and ever and anon the strange cry of bird or beast floating
through the stillness, or the wailing whistle of plover circling above--
and to me the experience was as strange as it was delightful. A day or
two ago, I had felt lonely and forlorn indeed--a stranger in a strange
land. Yet now here I was, in the most congenial surroundings beneath a
hospitable roof whose inmates looked upon me as one of themselves and
had made me thoroughly at home accordingly. And the fact that one of
the said inmates was an unusually attractive girl did not, you may be
sure, under the circumstances tend to lessen the feeling of thorough and
comfortable enjoyment to which the situation