atre, the affair with whom might be counted, it was to be
hoped, as the last furrow of a heavy sowing of wild oats. As this would be
a match _d'egal a egal_--in point of blood and education, at any
rate--certainly the Foltlebarres would have reason to bless their stars.

Somebody came over to her just then, saying:

"Bingo seems in excellent spirits."

She looked, a little apprehensively, across to where the Mother Superior
and the wistful-eyed, pepper-and-salt-clad Chaplain were patiently
listening to the recital of one of Bingo's stock anecdotes.

"What is he telling the Reverend Mother?" Her tone was anxious. "I do hope
not that story about the unwashed Boer and the cake of soap!"

"Don't be alarmed. It's a recent and completely harmless anecdote about
the despatch-runner from Diamond Town who got in this morning."

Her eyes sparkled.

"Really ...? And with news worth having?"

"Mr. Casey might be disposed to think so."

"Who is Mr. Casey?"

"That's a question nobody can answer satisfactorily."

"But is the intelligence absolutely useless to anybody who doesn't happen
to be Mr. Casey?" she insisted.

"Not unless they happened to be deeply interested in Mrs. Casey."

"There is a Mrs. Casey, then?"

"So says the man who travelled two hundred miles to bring her letters and
the message that she is, as Mr. Micawber would put it, _in statu quo_."

"I understand." The bright black eyes were compassionate. "She has written
to her husband--she doesn't know that he has been killed----"

"Nor do we. As far as we can ascertain, the garrison has never included a
Casey."

"Then you think----"

"I think"--he glanced aside as a stentorian bellow of laughter reached
them--"that, judging by what I hear, Bingo has got to the soapy story."

She frowned anxiously.

"Bingo ought to remember that nuns aren't ordinary women. I shall have to
go and gag him." She took a dubious step.

"Why? The Reverend Mother does not seem at all shocked, and Fraithorn is
evidently amused." He added, as Bingo's rapturous enjoyment of his own
anecdote reached the stamping and eye-mopping stage: "And undoubtedly
Bingo is happy."

"He has got out of hand lately. One can't keep a husband in a proper state
of subjection who may be brought home to one a corpse at any hour of the
day." Her laugh jangled harshly, and broke in the middle. "The soil of
Gueldersdorp being so uncommonly favourable just now to the production of
weeds of the wid