wore tancord, and the littlest angel had a black-tailed coat. She
wished she hadn't called him a thief and a Roman Catholic. She hoped the
German hadn't told him. She wondered where those clothes were when he
came in rags to her door. There was no doubt, he was a very respectable
man, a gentleman.

The German began to read a hymn. At the end of each line Bonaparte
groaned, and twice at the end of every verse.

The Boer-woman had often heard of persons groaning during prayers, to
add a certain poignancy and finish to them; old Jan Vanderlinde, her
mother's brother, always did it after he was converted; and she would
have looked upon it as no especial sign of grace in any one; but to
groan at hymn-time! She was startled. She wondered if he remembered that
she shook her fist in his face. This was a man of God. They knelt down
to pray. The Boer-woman weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and could
not kneel. She sat in her chair, and peeped between her crossed fingers
at the stranger's back. She could not understand what he said; but he
was in earnest. He shook the chair by the back rail till it made quite a
little dust on the mud floor.

When they rose from their knees Bonaparte solemnly seated himself in
the chair and opened the Bible. He blew his nose, pulled up his shirt
collar, smoothed the leaves, stroked down his capacious waistcoat, blew
his nose again, looked solemnly round the room, then began.

"All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone, which is the second death."

Having read this portion of Scripture, Bonaparte paused impressively,
and looked all round the room.

"I shall not, my dear friends," he said, "long detain you. Much of
our precious time has already fled blissfully from us in the voice of
thanksgiving and the tongue of praise. A few, a very few words are all
I shall address to you, and may they be as a rod of iron dividing the
bones from the marrow, and the marrow from the bones.

"In the first place: What is a liar?"

The question was put so pointedly, and followed by a pause so profound,
that even the Hottentot man left off looking at his boots and opened his
eyes, though he understood not a word.

"I repeat," said Bonaparte, "what is a liar?"

The sensation was intense; the attention of the audience was riveted.

"Have you any of you ever seen a liar, my dear friends?" There was a
still longer pause. "I hope not; I truly hope not. But I will tell