CHAPTER X
I Visit Miss Bloemfontein
And I also here discuss that irreconcilable maiden, Lord Stanley, and our own behaviour.
We published in the next issue, No. II, of March 26th, a letter by "Miss Uitlander" (pronounced in that country "Aitlander"). It was as genuine a production of the young womanhood of the town as that of "Miss Bloemfontein" had been, and it would have been wholly to our liking had it been as exceptional and bold a bit of work as the other, for it was, naturally, very pro-English. Suffice it to say that it answered and contradicted the Boer sentiments with vigour.
Miss Bloemfontein.
(A Portrayal of a Type, by Lester Ralph.)
This reminded us that we were to enjoy no more communications from the sprightly and talented Miss Bloemfontein. Most gallantly we had resolved to allow her the last word and there end the correspondence; but she had remained silent, leaving us with that "last word" which we, like simpletons, had never doubted that she would claim as hers by right of her womanhood. She was laughing at the predicament in which she had abandoned us, for she was wide awake at all points.
She had done me the honour to ask me to call upon her and—in this the laugh was on my side—then had repented of it. She repented because, in my reply to her communication, I had addressed her as "sweetheart" and had called her "dear." It had happened that when she wrote to the paper she let a few close friends into the secret, and these, when they read my lover's terms addressed to her, made haste to twit her upon the publicity of these verbal caresses, so that from rose-and-pearl she became peony red and hot of cheeks, and not nearly as desirous of seeing me as before my second letter saw the light.
However, I went to her home and found it very prettily appointed and comfortable, with an admiring family gathered around their girlish idol who had been to London, and who sang sweetly, played the piano deftly, and seemed to have read at least a little upon many subjects. She was, I should say, seventeen or eighteen, a pure blonde, still very girlish both in face and figure. I spent a pleasant hour in her company, and an English officer who called there at the same time endeavoured to persuade her to make up a party for afternoon tea at his regimental camp near the town. But her mother had announced that she could not bear to walk in the streets and see the British soldiers disfiguring the once hallowed scenery of the place, so it was perhaps, no wonder that Miss Bloemfontein declined to take afternoon tea with those enemies.
"I will not do anything to encourage or recognise their presence," she said.