lden hair, and damp enough both of them were, and she put her
thumb in her mouth, and stood and looked at me till I began to think
that I was dreaming.

"'Please, sir,' said the taller at last, 'is this Mr. Croft's house--Mr.
Croft--South African Republic?'

"'Yes, little Miss, this is his house, and this is the South African
Republic, and I am he. And now who might you be, my dears?' I answered.

"'If you please, sir, we are your nieces, and we have come to you from
England.'

"'What!' I holloaed, startled out of my wits, as well I might be.

"'Oh, sir,' says the poor little thing, clasping her thin wet hands,
'please don't send us away. Bessie is so wet, and cold and hungry too,
she isn't fit to go any farther.'

"And she set to work to cry, whereon the little one cried also, from
fright and cold and sympathy.

"Well, of course, I took them both to the fire, and set them on my
knees, and called for Hebe, the old Hottentot woman who did my cooking,
and between us we undressed them, and wrapped them up in some old
clothes, and fed them with soup and wine, so that in half an hour they
were quite happy and not a bit frightened.

"'And now, young ladies,' I said, 'come and give me a kiss, both of you,
and tell me how you came here.'

"This is the tale they told me--completed, of course, from what I learnt
afterwards--and an odd one it is. It seems that my half-brother married
a Norfolk lady--a sweet young thing--and treated her like a dog. He was
a drunken rascal, was my half-brother, and he beat his poor wife and
shamefully neglected her, and even ill-used the two little girls, till
at last the poor woman, weak as she was from suffering and ill health,
could bear it no longer, and formed the wild idea of escaping to this
country and of throwing herself upon my protection. That shows how
desperate she must have been. She scraped together and borrowed some
money, enough to pay for three second-class passages to Natal and a few
pounds over, and one day, when her brute of a husband was away on the
drink and gamble, she slipped on board a sailing ship in the London
Docks, and before he knew anything about it they were well out to sea.
But it was her last effort, poor dear soul, and the excitement of it
finished her. Before they had been ten days at sea, she sank and
died, and the two little children were left alone. What they must have
suffered, or rather what poor Jess must have suffered, for she was old
enough to