to both of
you, and particularly to tell you that The Bear sent you a growl, and
he hopes you will find more amiable Rhodesians at your other
camping-places."

But Diana was in no mood for light messages; rather unaccountably, she
received it with impatience.

"O, he is simply odious!" she exclaimed. "I have no patience with him.
Why can't he behave like an ordinary man just once in a way? Going off
at sunrise, and never stopping to say good-bye! It is downright
rudeness, and there is no reason why he should conclude he can be as
rude as he likes with impunity. You don't seem to mind his
bearishness, Meryl? but I hope you have spirit enough to resent his
casual departure."

Meryl was rather pale, but she managed to reply lightly, "I can't see
why you seem so surprised. He is only acting as he has done all along.
It is his affair, whether he keeps it up to the last, or suddenly
changes altogether and becomes the polite, conventional society man.
Personally, it would have surprised me far more to see the change."

"O, you're just shielding him," with impatient disdain; "I suppose
because he happens to be rather good to look at. But I call it rude;
just plain, unvarnished rudeness to go off like that for some
trumped-up reason and never say good-bye to you and me. I hope I
_shall_ meet more amiable Rhodesians elsewhere, and I should like to
have a chance to tell him so." Then she rattled off into another
subject, leaving neither Meryl nor her uncle any necessity to help the
conversation, for which, in their secret hearts, they were deeply
grateful.

And perhaps Diana's clever little head made an effort which had no
appearance of an effort; for like the two brothers who had been
respectively her father and her uncle, very little transpiring in her
immediate circle ever escaped her notice.

XVI

"THE SHIP OF FOOLS"

Meryl had not been long with the Grenvilles before Ailsa's sympathetic
nature divined that some shadow seemed to be brooding upon the girl's
spirit. She was so pensive and silent, with sad eyes turned often to
some far horizon full of wistful thought. And then perhaps suddenly
she would make an effort and be unusually gay, but the gaiety was not
spontaneous nor the laughter frank.

In truth, it had been a weary two days and nights for Meryl, since the
early morning when her father and Diana, with the engineer and
Stanley, rode away, after escorting her to the Mission Station and
leaving her