to you."

CHAPTER VII

LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM

After waiting a few minutes, Jess said "Good-night," and went straight
to Bessie's room. Her sister had undressed, and was sitting on her
bed, wrapped in a blue dressing-gown that suited her fair complexion
admirably, and with a very desponding expression on her beautiful face.
Bessie was one of those people who are easily elated and easily cast
down.

Jess came up to her and kissed her.

"What is it, love?" she said. And Bessie could never have divined the
gnawing anxiety that was eating at her heart as she said it.

"Oh, Jess, I'm so glad that you have come. I do so want you to advise
me--that is, to tell me what you think," and she paused.

"You must tell _me_ what it is all about first, Bessie dear," she said,
sitting down opposite to her in such a position that her face was shaded
from the light. Bessie tapped her naked foot against the matting with
which the little room was carpeted. It was an exceedingly pretty foot.

"Well, dear old girl, it is just this--Frank Muller has been here to ask
me to marry him."

"Oh," said Jess, with a sigh of relief. So that was all? She felt as
though a ton-weight had been lifted from her heart. She had expected
this bit of news for some time.

"He wanted me to marry him, and when I said I would not, he behaved
like--like----"

"Like a Boer," suggested Jess.

"Like a _brute_," went on Bessie with emphasis.

"So you don't care for Frank Muller?"

"Care for him! I loathe the man. You don't know how I loathe him, with
his handsome bad face and his cruel eyes. I always loathed him, and now
I hate him too. But I will tell you all about it;" and she did, with
many feminine comments and interpolations.

Jess sat quite still, and waited till she had finished.

"Well, dear," she said at last, "you are not going to marry him, and so
there is an end of it. You can't detest the man more than I do. I have
watched him for years," she went on, with rising anger, "and I tell you
that Frank Muller is a liar and a traitor. That man would betray his own
father if he thought it to his interest to do so. He hates uncle--I am
sure he does, although he pretends to be so fond of him. I am certain
that he has tried often and often to stir up the Boers against him.
Old Hans Coetzee told me that he denounced him to the Veld-Cornet as
an _uitlander_ and a _verdomde Engelsmann_ about two years before the
annexation, and tried to get him to per