l Nieuwenhuis, the most
frequent visitors at Harmony.

_The_ topic of conversation was connected with General Botha's visit
to Lord Kitchener in Middelburg, and when Hansie told her friends what
she had heard from the soldier that morning, they expressed their
conviction that every word he said must have been true.

And the latest _official_ war news, in rhyme, the dispatch from
Kitchener to the Secretary of State for War, came in for its share of
attention, occasioning no small amount of merriment.

Oh, happy afternoon! Oh, memories sweet! Oh, long departed days of
good fellowship and mutual understanding! Bright spots of gold and
crimson in our sky of lead!

* * * * *

Mrs. van Warmelo never at any time encouraged evening visitors. They
were all early risers at Harmony and their life could not be adapted
to the artificial, the unnatural strain of modern civilisation.

So the quiet evenings were spent by the mother in reading and writing,
while the daughter gave herself up to the indulgence of her one great
passion, music. Scales and exercises, Schubert and Chopin, and
invariably at the end--before retiring for the night--Beethoven, the
Master, the King of Music.

CHAPTER XI

PRISONER OF WAR

How the routine of life at Harmony was broken in upon by news "from
the front" that April month in 1901, I shall endeavour to relate.

Hansie coming home one morning from a shopping expedition, found her
mother in a state of suppressed excitement.

Everything was as much as possible "suppressed" in those
days--goodness only knows why, for surely it would have been better
for the nervous and highly strung mind if an occasional outburst could
have been permitted. Hansie suffered from the same complaint, and had
to pay most dearly in after years for the suppression of her deepest
feelings.

There is a Dutch saying which forcibly expresses that condition of
tense self-control under circumstances of a particularly trying
nature. We say we are "living on our nerves," and that describes the
case better than anything I have ever heard.

Our heroines, like so many other sorely tried women in South Africa,
were "living on their nerves," those wise, understanding nerves, so
knowing and so delicate, which form the stronghold of the human frame.

The external symptoms of this state were only known by those who
lived in close and constant intercourse with one another. Hansie
therefore kn