"and I will try not to love any one
else. But I do not know if I will be able."

"Oh, my darling, I think of you all night, all day. I think of nothing
else, love, nothing else," he said, folding his arms about her.

Em was a little conscience stricken; even that morning she had found
time to remember that in six months her cousin would come back from
school, and she had thought to remind Waldo of the lozenges for his
cough, even when she saw Gregory coming.

"I do not know how it is," she said humbly, nestling to him, "but I
cannot love you so much as you love me. Perhaps it is because I am only
a woman; but I do love you as much as I can."

Now the Kaffer maids were coming from the huts. He kissed her again,
eyes and mouth and hands, and left her.

Tant Sannie was well satisfied when told of the betrothment. She herself
contemplated marriage within the year with one or other of her numerous
vrijers, and she suggested that the weddings might take place together.

Em set to work busily to prepare her own household linen and wedding
garments. Gregory was with her daily, almost hourly, and the six months
which elapsed before Lyndall's return passed, as he felicitously phrased
it, "like a summer night, when you are dreaming of some one you love."

Late one evening, Gregory sat by his little love, turning the handle
of her machine as she drew her work through it, and they talked of
the changes they would make when the Boer-woman was gone, and the farm
belonged to them alone. There should be a new room here, and a kraal
there. So they chatted on. Suddenly Gregory dropped the handle, and
impressed a fervent kiss on the fat hand that guided the linen.

"You are so beautiful, Em," said the lover. "It comes over me in a flood
suddenly how I love you."

Em smiled.

"Tant Sannie says when I am her age no one will look at me; and it is
true. My hands are as short and broad as a duck's foot, and my forehead
is so low, and I haven't any nose. I can't be pretty."

She laughed softly. It was so nice to think he should be so blind.

"When my cousin comes tomorrow you will see a beautiful woman, Gregory,"
she added presently. "She is like a little queen: her shoulders are so
upright, and her head looks as though it ought to have a little crown
upon it. You must come to see her tomorrow as soon as she comes. I am
sure you will love her."

"Of course I shall come to see her, since she is your cousin; but do you
think I coul