"But," said Mr Trail, pulling out his watch, "I must leave you now, sir, and at nine o'clock I propose assembling the family, and closing the day with thanksgiving to the Almighty for the mercies with which He surrounds us. We shall meet again then, I trust;" and leaving Frankfort in the vineyard, the missionary returned to the house. What could this interview between Eleanor and Mr Trail mean? "Pshaw," thought Frankfort, "what is it to me?" and then the mantling cheek, the quivering lip, the trembling hand, on which he had discovered the mystic ring guarded by a circlet--a gilded snake--came between him and his reason, and he paced the green retreat, regardless of the fading day, till the moon rose high and clear, and the path was traced with the graceful pattern of the vine foliage. Something glittered in the path, he picked it up; the moonlit atmosphere of South Africa is so brilliant that the smallest handwriting is legible; but what he lifted was a miniature of a lovely child. There was nothing but the head, bending, as it were, from orient clouds; the face was angelic, the lips rosy and smiling, the waving hair like threads of gold in sunlight, the eyes with the pencilled brow unmistakable. Was it a brother, sister, or child of Eleanor? He looked at the back, and on an enamel ground was inscribed: "My Harry, born April 18--died March 18--." "Eheu! Eheu! Eheu!" He put it carefully up. The bell, hanging in a large mulberry-tree, under which the household assembled on Sundays to worship that God whose presence lights the desert, was now struck by Griqua Adam, on returning through the vineyard, reminded "the Sir," that "prayer-time was come;" and Frankfort, re-entering the trellised passage, joined the family and household servants on their way to what Ormsby already nicknamed the conventicle, where Mr Trail awaited them with the Bible open at the thirty-seventh Psalm. Frankfort was quite accustomed to hear men like Mr Trail called "swaddlers," "humbugs," nay, terms were applied to them such as no woman's pen can record; but though he felt what sorry representatives of their societies some of these teachers of God's solemn will had been, he was not one to censure the mass for the misdoings of the few; and therefore, soldier though he was, his heart was moved as he looked on the reader's calm, benevolent face, and heard him proclaim, in mild but fervent tones, that "the meek-spirited shall possess the earth;" and even Ormsby's eye glowed with something of enthusiasm as the missionary lifted up his voice at the closing verse, "And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them; he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they put their trust in him."