ephanus. He would soon convince you."

"Make a `patriot' of me, you mean, Adrian. I am that already in the
real meaning of the word. Well, Colvin, what have you been doing
lately? It's a long time since I've seen you."

"That so, Stephanus? Oh, all sorts of things--farming, and hunting, and
taking it easy generally."

"And making love to that pretty Miss Wenlock," said Condaas, the younger
girl, in a sly undertone.

Colvin turned, with a laugh. He and this household were upon quite
intimate terms, and he had been exchanging greetings all-round during
the colloquy between uncle and nephew.

"There would be every excuse, wouldn't there?" he answered, entering
into the joke, and, moreover, hugely amused, remembering that almost the
last words May had spoken to him had been to chaff him about these very
girls, and now almost their first words had been to chaff him about her.

"You ought not to say that in our presence," said Andrina, with a mimic
pout.

"Of course not. But if you had not interrupted me I was going to
add--`but for the fact of the propinquity of Ratels Hoek and the
entrancing but utterly perplexing choice of counter-attractions it
affords.'"

"Why will you make those girls talk such a lot of nonsense, Mr
Kershaw?" laughed Mrs De la Rey. "They always do whenever you come
here. I declare you are making them very dreadful."

"Didn't know I exercised such influence over the young and tender mind.
It isn't I who do it, Mrs De la Rey. It's Adrian there. Depend upon
it, he is the delinquent."

Now Adrian was a good-looking, well-set-up young fellow, who, his fiery
"patriotism" notwithstanding, had his clothes built by an English tailor
and talked English fluently. Indeed, in the De la Rey household it was
spoken almost as frequently as the mother tongue, and the above
conversation had been carried on about equally in both languages,
gliding imperceptibly from one to the other and back again.

"Adrian? Why, there isn't a grain of fun left in Adrian these days,"
said Condaas, mischievously. "See how solemn he looks. I believe he
thinks about nothing but fighting the English."

"Well, we have just ridden two solid hours together, and he didn't want
to fight me," said Colvin.

But the young "patriot" was not enjoying this form of chaff, for he
turned away, indignantly muttering to the effect that some matters were
too high and too great to be made fun of by a pair of giggling girls.

"N