le candlestick had been disestablished in
favour of a brass one. On the same lines had the quarters of the other
two been reorganised, except that old Hesketh drew the line at sheets.
Blankets were good enough for any man, he declared, and flatly refused
to court rheumatism at his time of life by sleeping between cold, glazy
stuff like that.

Our friend Dick now began to overhaul his kit, and was conscious of
searchings of heart as he realised that it was so limited. He had
brought little more than absolute necessaries in the way of clothing.
Greenoak had warned him that he would have to do without luxuries at
Haakdoornfontein, and, by Jingo, Greenoak had been right up till now;
but Greenoak, of course, had not been able to foretell the sudden
irruption of a bright, refined, and exceedingly pretty girl upon their
rough and ready mode of living.

And Hazel Brandon was all that. Such sunshine did her presence and
merry spirits and winning ways create in this sober male household, that
the two older members of the same felt almost uneasy, so incongruous did
it seem to the quiet and somewhat sombre life of the place. The
younger--well, he was in something of a whirl. One thing about the girl
puzzled him, and that was how she could be so nearly related to his
host. The latter he was very taken with. He was a dear old chap, as he
was wont to say; but with all his sterling qualities, old Hesketh was
certainly not quite his equal from a social standpoint. Yet this girl
looked absolutely thoroughbred; was, too, in all her ways and ideas.
She must have got it on her father's side, conjectured Dick, perhaps
correctly.

There was one thing about her that appealed to him if only that he
believed he had encountered it in her for the first time. She was so
absolutely natural and devoid of self-consciousness. True he had seen
the counterfeit of this in other girls of his acquaintance, but it had
not seemed to ring true. He had felt sure--again perhaps correctly--
that they were doing it for effect; "crowding it on," as he more tersely
put it. But here he detected no trace of any such thing.

"Do you think I am such a feeble tottering creature, Mr Selmes, that I
can't even turn a door handle for myself?" she said one day, when he had
bounded across the room--upsetting one chair and barking his shin
against another in his anxiety to perform that onerous undertaking for
her.

The words were said with a bright smile. Dic