"Don't you be too curious, old Sanna," was the answer. "Perhaps soon--
perhaps not so soon. Who knows?"

"A Missis is badly wanted here, _ja_, very badly. Look at all that,"
with a sweep of a yellow hand towards the confused pile of books and
papers which had encroached over the greater part of the table. "All
that would be cleared away. His letters too. Why the Baas does not
even take the trouble to open his letters. Look at them."

The girl's heart tightened. Well she knew why those envelopes remained
unopened. Their contents but bore upon the difficulties of their
recipient, but in no sense with a tendency to alleviate the same. She
forebore to touch the untidy heap lest something he might want to find
should be misplaced, but she got a duster, and dusted and straightened
the pictures and other things upon the wall. One frame only there was
no need for her to dust or straighten. It was the one which contained
her own portrait: and realising this a very soft, sweet smile came over
her face. At which psychological moment Wyvern re-entered.

"I notice this is the only thing you allow old Sanna to dust," she said
ingenuously. "How many times a week is she under orders to do it?"

"You shall pay for that," he answered. "There. Now you have done so
duly, you shall own that you knew perfectly well that nobody ever
touches it but me."

"_Oh, goeije_! it is as if there were really a Missis here at last."

The interruption came from old Sanna, who at that moment entered,
bringing in the dishes. Both laughed.

"See, old Sanna," said Wyvern. "We are rather tired of that remark. So
if you can't invent a new one don't make any."

"Better to be tired of that than of the Missis," chuckled the old woman,
as she withdrew. It will be seen that she was rather a privileged
person.

The evening slipped by all too soon for these two, as they sat out on
the stoep, watching the suffusing glow that heralded the rising of the
broad moon. In the stillness the voices of night, well-nigh as
multifold as the voices of day, were scarcely hushed, and the shrill bay
of a jackal away beyond the river, would seem but a distance of yards
instead of miles. The weird hoot of some ghostly night bird too, would
float ever and anon from the hillside; and the dogs lying around the
house would start up and bark in deep-toned, angry chorus, as the harsh
shout of sentinel baboons echoed forth from the darksome recesses of the
kl