sia, except a few tourists to the Victoria Falls.
Do you think there is anything to eat there except locusts and wild
honey?"

"Let's go and see. I ... I ... want to do some Empire work or
something. I can't explain. But we've just got into such a maze of
petty happenings and petty pleasures, and since the King died ..."

"Of course!... you've been miles away ever since, dreaming and
romancing and imperialising. But it won't last, and when you've landed
us all high and dry in some Rhodesian wilderness we shall just hate
each other and everything else, and be ready to murder you."

"Nonsense. We shall explore all round, and study the natives and the
animals, and make friends with the settlers; and it will all be just
new and big and teeming with interest."

"Not if you are chewing the mule harness, because you've had nothing
to eat for days."

"O yes, even that; why not?... We should love it all when we came
safely back."

"Well, I'll have the bridle, then. It won't, perhaps, be quite so
greasy."

"Now you're disgusting. Just put your head back on the pillow, and
register a vow to see me through this craze, if you like to call it
so, and I'll love you for ever. I like to think of it as Empire work.
Come and do a little Empire work too."

"But I don't want to. I'm bored to tears with the Empire. We hear a
great deal too much of it nowadays; that and Standard Bread. I don't
know which is the worst"--making a wry face--"and, besides, if you
really want to do Empire work, your plain duty is to marry Dutch
Willie and cement the races."

A cloud flitted for a moment across Meryl's fair face, which Diana was
quick to see, and she snoozled down into her cosy bed with a little
chuckle.

"Got you there, my fair Imperialist! Dutch Willie, or let us call him
William van Hert, will drop this wild anti-British policy of his like
a hot brick, if you will only make up your mind to be Madam van Hert,
and bless his hearth with a Dutch doll or two, having good English
blood in their veins as well as eighteen-carat Dutch," and the
chuckles grew more and more audible.

But Meryl only got up slowly and moved away to her own little bed.

"Well, I shall ask father to-morrow, and if you won't come I shall try
to make him take me without you. I think he will."

"O, no he won't. If you are really quite obdurate, I shall do a little
Imperial work also. I shall come along to keep watch and ward, and see
that you don't fail the Empi