“When do you want to get married?”
“Next month, aunt,” said the young man in a tone of hopeless resignation. “May I kiss you, aunt?”
“Fie! fie!” said Tant Sannie, and then gave him a resounding kiss. “Come, draw your chair a little closer,” she said, and their elbows now touching, they sat on through the night.
The next morning at dawn, as Em passed through Tant Sannie’s bedroom, she found the Boer-woman pulling off her boots preparatory to climbing into bed.
“Where is Piet Vander Walt?”
“Just gone,” said Tant Sannie; “and I am going to marry him this day four weeks. I am dead sleepy,” she added; “the stupid thing doesn’t know how to talk love-talk at all,” and she climbed into the four-poster, clothes and all, and drew the quilt up to her chin.
On the day preceding Tant Sannie’s wedding, Gregory Rose sat in the blazing sun on the stone wall behind his daub-and-wattle house. It was warm, but he was intently watching a small buggy that was being recklessly driven over the bushes in the direction of the farmhouse. Gregory never stirred till it had vanished; then, finding the stones hot, he slipped down and walked into the house. He kicked the little pail that lay in the doorway, and sent it into one corner; that did him good. Then he sat down on the box, and began cutting letters out of a piece of newspaper. Finding that the snippings littered the floor, he picked them up and began scribbling on his blotting-paper. He tried the effect of different initials before the name Rose: G. Rose, E. Rose, L. Rose, Rose, L.L., L.L. Rose. When he had covered the sheet, he looked at it discontentedly a little while, then suddenly began to write a letter:
“Beloved Sister,
“It is a long while since I last wrote to you, but I have had no time. This is the first morning I have been at home since I don’t know when. Em always expects me to go down to the farmhouse in the morning; but I didn’t feel as though I could stand the ride today.