treated me like that from the first day; and you couldn't tell from just
looking at me that I couldn't talk about the things you like. I'm sure I
know as much about such things as Waldo does," said Gregory, in exceeding
bitterness of spirit.

"I do not know which things you refer to. If you will enlighten me I am
quite prepared to speak of them," she said, reading as she spoke.

"Oh, you never used to ask Waldo like that," said Gregory, in a more sorely
aggrieved tone than ever. "You used just to begin."

"Well, let me see," she said, closing her book and folding her hands on it.
"There at the foot of the kopje goes a Kaffer; he has nothing on but a
blanket; he is a splendid fellow--six feet high, with a magnificent pair of
legs. In his leather bag he is going to fetch his rations, and I suppose
to kick his wife with his beautiful legs when he gets home. He has a right
to; he bought her for two oxen. There is a lean dog going after him, to
whom I suppose he never gives more than a bone from which he has sucked the
marrow; but his dog loves him, as his wife does. There is something of the
master about him in spite of his blackness and wool. See how he brandishes
his stick and holds up his head!"

"Oh, but aren't you making fun?" said Gregory, looking doubtfully from her
to the Kaffer herd, who rounded the kopje.

"No; I am very serious. He is the most interesting and intelligent thing I
can see just now, except, perhaps, Doss. He is profoundly suggestive.
Will his race melt away in the heat of a collision with a higher? Are the
men of the future to see his bones only in museums--a vestige of one link
that spanned between the dog and the white man? He wakes thoughts that run