bright blue eyes, and with these orbs
of light declared her thorough belief in the wisdom of what ever Charlie
might say or do.

"They say it's all settled!" cried Jerry Goldboy, hastily entering
Kenneth McTavish's stable.

"What's all settled?" demanded Sandy Black.

"Peace with the Kafirs," said Jerry.

"Peace wi' the Kawfirs!" echoed Sandy, in a slightly contemptuous tone.
"H'm! they should never hae had war wi' them, Jerry, my man."

"But 'aving 'ad it, ain't it well that it's hover?" returned Jerry.

"It's cost us a bonnie penny," rejoined Black.

"Nae doot Glen Lynden has come off better than ither places, for we've
managed to haud oor ain no' that ill, but wae's me for the puir folk o'
the low country! An' I'll be bound the Imperial Treasury'll smart
for't. [See Note 1.] But it's an ill wind that blaws nae gude. We've
taken a gude slice o' land frae the thievin' craters, for it's said Sir
Benjamin D'Urban has annexed all the country between the Kei and the
Keiskamma to the colony. A most needfu' addition, for the jungles o'
the Great Fish River or the Buffalo were jist fortresses where the
Kawfirs played hide-an'-seek wi' the settlers, an' it's as plain as the
nose on my face that peace wi' them is not possible till they're driven
across the Kei--that bein' a defensible boundary."

"So, they say that peace is proclaimed," said Stephen Orpin to a pretty
young woman who had recently put it out of his power to talk of his
"bachelor home at Salem." Jessie McTavish had taken pity on him at
last!

"Indeed!" replied Jessie, with a half-disappointed look; "then I suppose
you'll be going off again on your long journeys into the interior, and
leaving me to pine here in solitude?"

"That depends," returned Orpin, "on how you treat me! Perhaps I may
manage to find my work nearer home than I did in days gone by. At all
events I'll not go into Kafirland just now, for it's likely to remain in
an unsettled state for many a day. It has been a sad and useless war,
and has cost us a heavy price. Think, Jessie, of the lives lost--
forty-four of our people murdered during the invasion, and eighty-four
killed and thirty wounded during the war. People will say that is
nothing to speak of, compared with losses in other wars; but I don't
care for comparisons, I think only of the numbers of our people, and of
the hundreds of wretched Kafirs, who have been cut off in their prime
and sent to meet their Judge. But ther