ofound melancholy seeming to rest over
his soul. His house was a little square daub-and-wattle building, far
out in the karoo, two miles from the homestead. It was covered outside
with a sombre coating of brown mud, two little panes being let into the
walls for windows. Behind it were the sheep-kraals, and to the right
a large dam, now principally containing baked mud. Far off the little
kopje concealed the homestead, and was not itself an object conspicuous
enough to relieve the dreary monotony of the landscape.

Before the door sat Gregory Rose in his shirt-sleeves, on a camp-stool,
and ever and anon he sighed deeply. There was that in his countenance
for which even his depressing circumstances failed to account. Again and
again he looked at the little kopje, at the milk-pail at his side,
and at the brown pony, who a short way off cropped the dry bushes--and
sighed.

Presently he rose and went into his house. It was one tiny room,
the whitewashed walls profusely covered with prints cut from the
"Illustrated London News", and in which there was a noticeable
preponderance of female faces and figures. A stretcher filled one end
of the hut, and a rack for a gun and a little hanging looking-glass
diversified the gable opposite, while in the centre stood a chair and
table. All was scrupulously neat and clean, for Gregory kept a little
duster folded in the corner of his table-drawer, just as he had seen his
mother do, and every morning before he went out he said his prayers, and
made his bed, and dusted the table and the legs of the chairs, and even
the pictures on the wall and the gun-rack.

On this hot afternoon he took from beneath his pillow a watch-bag made
by his sister Jemima, and took out the watch. Only half past four! With
a suppressed groan he dropped it back and sat down beside the table.
Half-past four! Presently he roused himself. He would write to his
sister Jemima. He always wrote to her when he was miserable. She was his
safety-valve. He forgot her when he was happy; but he used her when he
was wretched.

He took out ink and paper. There was a family crest and motto on the
latter, for the Roses since coming to the colony had discovered that
they were of distinguished lineage. Old Rose himself, an honest English
farmer, knew nothing of his noble descent; but his wife and daughter
knew--especially his daughter. There were Roses in England who kept a
park and dated from the Conquest. So the colonial "Rose F