"Of course," I answered in the same tongue, which I knew well; "but why
do you call me little, missie? I am taller than you," I added
indignantly, for when I was young my lack of height was always a sore
point with me.

"I think not," she replied. "But get off that horse, and we will
measure here against this wall."

So I dismounted, and, having assured herself that I had no heels to my
boots (I was wearing the kind of raw-hide slippers that the Boers call
"veld-shoon"), she took the writing slate which she was carrying--it had
no frame, I remember, being, in fact, but a piece of the material used
for roofing--and, pressing it down tight on my stubbly hair, which stuck
up then as now, made a deep mark in the soft sandstone of the wall with
the hard pointed pencil.

"There," she said, "that is justly done. Now, little Allan, it is your
turn to measure me."

So I measured her, and, behold! she was the taller by a whole half-inch.

"You are standing on tiptoe," I said in my vexation.

"Little Allan," she replied, "to stand on tiptoe would be to lie before
the good Lord, and when you come to know me better you will learn that,
though I have a dreadful temper and many other sins, I do not lie."

I suppose that I looked snubbed and mortified, for she went on in her
grave, grown-up way: "Why are you angry because God made me taller than