s useful servants
in their homes and in the fields, but it was rare indeed for one of
them to find his way into the towns. Fate had been unkind in
separating him from his dear ones for so many months, and Paulus went
through days of melancholy and despair.

One day, when Hansie heard him sigh more heavily than usual, she
asked:

"Are you thinking of your wife and children, Paulus?"

"Oh yes, Nonnie, I am always thinking of them, but I was thinking also
how sad it was to forget all my learning. I was getting on so well
with my reading and writing, and now I find it so hard to go on by
myself."

"Oh, if that is all, Paulus," Hansie said cheerfully, "I can help you
a lot. Bring me your books this evening and let me hear you read."

The poor fellow's look of gratitude was touching to behold. He needed
no second invitation, and appeared that evening in his Sunday suit,
with a new shirt on, and his hands and face scrubbed with soap and
water until they shone like polished ebony.

A Dutch Bible, a book of hymns and psalms, and a small spelling-book
were all he possessed, but Hansie found him further advanced than she
had expected, and wonderfully intelligent, and she soon added a few
simple reading-books to his small store.

Now and then she instructed him for a short hour, and it was a
pleasure to see the change which came over him within a few weeks.
Learning became the joy of his life, and in his ambition to get on he
forgot much of his anxiety and distress at the enforced separation
from his wife and children.

One evening when Hansie had gone into the kitchen to look over his
work, there was a sudden fumbling at the door and "Gentleman Jim"
stumbled in with a campstool under one arm and a slate and Bible, an
English one, under the other.

"Coming to learn too, little missie," he said, grinning from ear to
ear and settling himself comfortably on the stool.

Paulus bent over his writing and said never a word. Hansie nodded
uncomfortably.

That this self-invited pupil was unwelcome was evident, but he
himself seemed serenely unconscious of the fact.

There was no love lost between Paulus and "Gentleman Jim"--not that
there had ever been an open rupture, but Paulus despised the dandified
Zulu, and "Jim" looked down (figuratively speaking, for he was quite a
foot shorter in stature) on Paulus's rugged simplicity.

They systematically ignored one another, and were only heard to
exchange brief sentences, in Eng