of rolling them around on everything and everybody else," she
warned, apostrophising the small boy whose entrance had been so
inopportune a short time ago.

"Yes, missis," replied the urchin, his round face splitting into a
stripe of dazzling white as he grinned from ear to ear, whether at the
recollection of what he had recently beheld, or out of sheer unthinking
light-heartedness. Then he turned and made some remark in their own
language to his companion, which caused that sooty imp to grin and
chuckle too.

"What's that you're grinning at, you little scamp?" said Hermia,
sharply, with a meaning glance at a thin sjambok which hung on the wall,
a cut or two from which was now and again necessary to keep these
diminutive servitors up to the mark.

"No be angry, missis. Tickey, he say, `Missis, she awful damn pretty.'"

Hermia choked down a well-nigh uncontrollable explosion of laughter.

"You mustn't use that word, Primrose," she said, trying to look stern.
"It's a bad word."

"Bad word? How that, missis? Baas, he say it. Baas in dere--Baas
Sepence," was the somewhat perplexing rejoinder.

"Well, it's a white man's word; not a word for children, black or
white," explained Hermia, lamely.

The imps chuckled. "I no say it, missis," pursued Primrose. "Tickey,
he say missis awful beastly pretty. Always want to look at her. Work
no well done, missis' fault. Dat what Tickey say. Always want look at
missis."

"You'd better look at what you're doing now, you monkey, and do it
properly too, or you know what's likely to happen," rejoined Hermia.
But the implied threat in this case was absolutely an empty one, and the
sooty scamps knew it. They knew, too, how to get on the soft side of
their mistress.

That, however, was the side very much to the fore this evening.
Throughout her prosaic occupation, her mind would recur with a thrill to
that scene of a short half-hour ago, and already she longed for its
repetition. But she was not going to give him too much. She must
tantalise him sufficiently, must keep him on tenterhooks, not make
herself too cheap. But was she not tantalising herself too? Certainly
she was, but therein lay the zest, the excitement which lent keenness to
the sport.

They sat down to table together. The door stood open on account of the
heat, and, every now and then, winged insects, attracted by the light,
would come whizzing round the lamp. There was a soft, home-like look
about