ed.

The women, too, liked her, for she was kindly and always ready to help
in case of poverty or other distresses. Luckily, in a way, she was her
own mistress, since her fortune came to her unfettered by any marriage
settlements; moreover, it was in the hands of trustees, so that the
principal could not be alienated. Therefore she had her own account and
her own cheque-book and used her spare money as she liked. More than one
poor missionary's wife knew this and called her blessed, as through her
bounty they once again looked upon the shores of England or were able
to send a sick child home for treatment. But of these good deeds Dorcas
never talked, least of all to her husband. If he suspected them, after
one encounter upon some such matter, in which she developed a hidden
strength and purpose, he had the sense to remain silent.

So things went on for years, not unhappily on the whole, for as they
rolled by the child Tabitha grew acclimatised and much stronger. By this
time, although Dorcas loved her husband as all wives should, obeying him
in all, or at any rate in most things, she had come to recognise that he
and she were very differently constituted. Of course, she knew that
he was infinitely her superior, and indeed that of most people. Like
everybody else she admired his uprightness, his fixity of purpose and
his devouring energy and believed him to be destined to great things.
Still, to tell the truth, which she often confessed with penitence
upon her knees, on the whole she felt happier, or at any rate more
comfortable, during his occasional absences to which allusion has been
made, when she could have her friends to tea and indulge in human gossip
without being called "worldly."

It only remains to add that her little girl Tabitha, a name she
shortened into Tabbie, was her constant joy, especially as she had no
other children. Tabbie was a bright, fair-haired little thing, clever,
too, with resource and a will of her own, an improved edition of
herself, but in every way utterly unlike her father, a fact that
secretly annoyed him. Everybody loved Tabitha, and Tabitha loved
everybody, not excepting the natives, who adored her. Between the
Kaffirs and Tabitha there was some strong natural bond of sympathy. They
understood one another.

At length came the blow.

It happened thus. Not far from the borders of Zululand but in the
country that is vaguely known as Portuguese Territory, was a certain
tribe of