ing the direction narrowly. "There's no one in
England likely to write to me."

"Father. Look again. You must be getting blind. Why it is one of our
stamps after all, and the postmark is Durban--or what's left of it."

"Has Durban, then, met with nearly total destruction?" he inquired,
tranquilly.

"Now, don't be absurd. You know I meant the postmark."

"Oh, the postmark? Small wonder I was in doubt, for the sole use of the
average postmark is to throw a hopeless blind on both the locality and
the date of posting."

"Well the best way of solving the mystery, and the shortest, would be to
open the letter and look at the signature."

"Ah! Ah! A woman's way of reading a novel--looking at the end first."

"Father, are you going to open that letter or are you not? If you have
no curiosity on the subject of an unknown hand I have. And--it's a
feminine hand too."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

MANAMANDHLA'S BEEF.

"Yes, it's a feminine hand," he echoed, gazing critically on the
envelope. "There's character in it too. Now I wonder who the deuce it
can be from."

"Father, _will_ you open it? Can't you see I am dying with curiosity?"

"Now, I'm not--not one little bit," he answered, delighted to tease her.
"In fact I wouldn't mind postponing the further investigation of this
mysterious missive for at least a week. Letters in unknown hands are
generally of that character. For the matter of that, only too often so
are those in known ones."

For answer she suddenly snatched the letter from his hand and tore it
open. "There now. Will you read it?" she said, giving it back.

"Certainly." Then as the name at the end caught his eyes, a whistle of
surprise escaped him. His fun sobered down while he read:

"The Royal Hotel,

"Durban.

"My dear distant Relative,

"We are related, but I believe distantly, at any rate poor mother
always gave me to understand so, and latterly she talked a great deal
of you. You may or may not have heard that we lost her between five
or six months ago; but towards the last, when she was talking about
you so often, she made me promise that I would find you out, and renew
our acquaintance; though I don't know about the `renewing' part of it,
for I was much too small in those days to remember anything of you
now. However she gave me your address, and though it is an address of
ever so many years ago it may still hold good, or at any rate be the
means