n. When the Bushman had had brandy, he
began to tell how something (he did not say whether it was man, woman,
or child) had lifted up its hands and cried for mercy; had kissed a
white man's hands, and cried to him to help it. Then the Hottentot took
the Bushman by the throat, and dragged him out.

Next night, the moon rose up, and mounted the quiet sky. She was full
now, and looked in at the little home; at the purple flowers stuck about
the room, and the kippersol on the shelf. Her light fell on the willow
trees, and on the high rocks, and on a little new-made heap of earth
and round stones. Three men knew what was under it; and no one else ever
will.

Lily Kloof, South Africa.

II. THE WOMAN'S ROSE.

I have an old, brown carved box; the lid is broken and tied with a
string. In it I keep little squares of paper, with hair inside, and a
little picture which hung over my brother's bed when we were children,
and other things as small. I have in it a rose. Other women also have
such boxes where they keep such trifles, but no one has my rose.

When my eye is dim, and my heart grows faint, and my faith in woman
flickers, and her present is an agony to me, and her future a despair,
the scent of that dead rose, withered for twelve years, comes back to
me. I know there will be spring; as surely as the birds know it when
they see above the snow two tiny, quivering green leaves. Spring cannot
fail us.

There were other flowers in the box once; a bunch of white acacia
flowers, gathered by the strong hand of a man, as we passed down a
village street on a sultry afternoon, when it had rained, and the drops
fell on us from the leaves of the acacia trees. The flowers were damp;
they made mildew marks on the paper I folded them in. After many years
I threw them away. There is nothing of them left in the box now, but
a faint, strong smell of dried acacia, that recalls that sultry summer
afternoon; but the rose is in the box still.

It is many years ago now; I was a girl of fifteen, and I went to visit
in a small up-country town. It was young in those days, and two days'
journey from the nearest village; the population consisted mainly of
men. A few were married, and had their wives and children, but most were
single. There was only one young girl there when I came. She was about
seventeen, fair, and rather fully-fleshed; she had large dreamy blue
eyes, and wavy light hair; full, rather heavy lips, until she smiled;
then h