After she had explained the object of her visit and apologised for
troubling him about such a trifle, she told him that she had been
informed in other Departments that as there was no institution for
granting permits to hold rehearsals, she would have to get a special
permit from the Military Governor.

"Why," he exclaimed in surprise, "can you not rehearse without a
permit?"

"No," Hansie answered laughingly. "Do you not know that two or three
may not gather together except in the name of the Governor under the
new regulations and since the execution of Cordua? Why, we may be
conspiring against your life instead of rehearsing our songs, and at
the present moment we can hardly put our noses out-of-doors without
being asked whether we have permits for them."

"You are right," he answered; "I did not think of this. Well, you may
have your permit on condition that you promise to talk no politics and
to be in your own homes before 7 p.m."

Hansie gave the promise on behalf of the vocal society, and yet
another war-permit was added to her curious collection! With all the
friendliness existing between the Governor and herself, I do not for a
moment think that they ever trusted one another completely. Were they
not both good patriots? Hansie knew by the questions he asked her that
he was trying to extract information from her, and the Governor only
told her as much as he thought she could use to his own advantage.

On this particular occasion, when he parted from her, he asked in a
fatherly, I-take-such-an-interest-in-you way whether she ever heard
from her brothers.

"No," she exclaimed in innocent surprise. "How can I?" (and at the
time she spoke truth). Whereupon he sympathetically murmured something
about "a very trying time for you."

Permits everywhere and for everything!

Men were stopped in the streets to show their residential passes,
private carriages were held up and the occupants requested to produce
their permits for vehicle and horses, and cyclists had to dismount a
dozen times a day at the sign of some khaki-clothed figure patrolling
the streets.

The first British officers to cross Harmony's threshold as visitors
and equals were a colonel and a young captain, who both came from
Wynberg with letters of introduction from Mrs. van Warmelo's daughter,
Mrs. Henry Cloete.

After the long months of irregular correspondence, always severely
censored, it was such a relief to get news direct that the bearer