and when you come to know me better you will learn that,
though I have a dreadful temper and many other sins, I do not lie."

I suppose that I looked snubbed and mortified, for she went on in her
grave, grown-up way: "Why are you angry because God made me taller than
you? especially as I am whole months older, for my father told me so.
Come, let us write our names against these marks, so that in a year
or two you may see how you outgrow me." Then with the slate pencil she
scratched "Marie" against her mark very deeply, so that it might last,
she said; after which I wrote "Allan" against mine.

Alas! Within the last dozen years chance took me past Maraisfontein
once more. The house had long been rebuilt, but this particular wall yet
stood. I rode to it and looked, and there faintly could still be seen
the name Marie, against the little line, and by it the mark that I had
made. My own name and with it subsequent measurements were gone, for
in the intervening forty years or so the sandstone had flaked away in
places. Only her autograph remained, and when I saw it I think that I
felt even worse than I did on finding whose was the old Bible that I had
bought upon the market square at Maritzburg.

I know that I rode away hurriedly without even stopping to inquire into
whose hands the farm had passed. Through the peach orchard I rode, where
the trees--perhaps the same, perhaps others--were once more in bloom,
for the season of the year was that when Marie and I first met, nor did
I draw rein for half a score of miles.

But here I may state that Marie always stayed just half an inch the
taller in body, and how much taller in mind and spirit I cannot tell.

When we had finished our measuring match Marie turned to lead me to
the house, and, pretending to observe for the first time the beautiful
bustard and the two koran hanging from my saddle, also the klipspringer
buck that Hans the Hottentot carried behind him on his horse, asked:

"Did you shoot all these, Allan Quatermain?"

"Yes," I answered proudly; "I killed them in four shots, and the pauw
and koran were flying, not sitting, which is more than you could have
done, although you are taller, Miss Marie."

"I do not know," she answered reflectively. "I can shoot very well with
a rifle, for my father has taught me, but I never would shoot at living
things unless I must because I was hungry, for I think that to kill is
cruel. But, of course, it is different with men,"