s out into a wide basin, where the stream
winds and curves through a green fertile bottom, whose rich soil for
many acres is covered with growing crops of wheat and maize. Higher up
still, in vivid contrast to the darker-hued foliage around, stands forth
a group of tall willows, their trailing feathery boughs--affording a
nesting-place to a perfect colony of noisy and chattering finks--shading
the glassy surface of a large dam. Between this and an extensive
orchard, whose well-cared-for trees are groaning beneath the weight of
their ripening loads--peaches and apricots, the delicate nectarine, and
the luscious pear--stands the homestead.

No bare, rough-and-ready shanty of sun-baked bricks this, but a good and
substantial house, rendered picturesque by its surrounding of orange
trees and pomegranates; of great red cactus, glowing prismatically, now
crimson, now scarlet; of many-hued geraniums; of the royal passion
flower twining up the pillars of the _stoep_, spreading over the roof of
the verandah itself. No dead, drear, arid thirst-land this, but a
veritable garden of Eden; the murmur of running water in the air, the
fruits of the earth glowing and ripening around, the sunlight glinting
in a network through the foliage, and a varying chorus of gladsome
bird-voices echoing around from far and near. Such is Sunningdale--
Christopher Selwood's farm in the Umtirara Mountains. Nor was it
inappropriately named.

Seated on the _stoep_ aforesaid, under the cool shade of the verandah,
are two young women--one busily engaged on a piece of needlework, the
other reading, or, to be more accurate, pretending to read. Not less
dissimilar in appearance are these two than in their present occupation.
One tall, fair, grave; the Other of smaller build, dark, _espiegle_.
One deliberate of speech and movement; the other all mirth and vivacity
upon any or no provocation.

"How much longer are you going on with that eternal stitch, stitch,
stitch, Marian?" cries the latter, dropping her book for the twentieth
time and yawning.

She addressed smiles slightly.

"Why? What would you rather I did?" she says. "You generally say it's
too hot to stroll in the morning."

"Do I? Well, perhaps it is. But you were looking so preternaturally
solemn, and so silent, that I believe you were thinking of--some one.
Who was it? Come, out with it!"

"You shouldn't judge everybody from your own standpoint, Violet," is the
good-humoured repl