In the central room, which served as drawing-room, music-room and study, the family had gathered to receive their guests. They were seated around in a circle--the women and girls being gorgeously arrayed in pink or green full skirts, tight waists and pearl necklaces. As the lieutenant and George went the rounds shaking hands in accordance with an old Boer custom, each greeted them heartily. Uncle Abraham and Grandfather Joubert, who had been out in the fields all morning directing the Kafirs, came in hungry for their dinner and glad to see the Wortleys. It was noon-time and the time when the heavy midday meal in all Boer households is served. So Aunt Johanna led the way at once out to the clean, light dining-room, with its spotlessly white walls, where they took their places around the long, family table, standing silently, while Grandfather Joubert read a Psalm from the old, brass-bound Bible. Then Great-grandfather Joubert invoked the blessing with a long grace, to which everybody listened reverently with folded hands--even Petrus and George, who had been allowed places next to each other. Before Vrouw Joubert the coffee-urn steamed invitingly. She always superintended, and often cooked these meals herself, to which ten or twelve persons usually sat down. As she poured the coffee, several hideous brown-faced Hottentot girls, in bright calico dresses with colored beads and ribbons, silently entered and stood ready to pass the plates. Magdalena served the excellently cooked mutton, vegetables, rice-pudding, fruit, with good wholesome bread just fresh from the oven. Then "konfyt"--a sort of crystallized fruit--was passed to the boys, to spread on their bread and butter. Everybody ate silently for the most part, as is Boer custom. But Lieutenant Wortley complimented Vrouw Joubert on the excellence of her coffee, and added pleasantly: "Petrus must be getting to be quite a good young farmer-lad by this time, isn't he?" "The best for his age in the Transvaal!" proudly asserted Uncle Abraham. "He is learning to use the cultivator, and becoming quite an expert at it, too. But I think Petrus likes sheep-farming best, don't you, Koos?" "Yes, Uncle Abraham, sheep-farming is what I like best. There is no better grazing-lands in all South Africa than the Transvaal has, and I always feel so proud of our great loads of snow-white wool, every bag stamped with 'Weltefreden' in big letters on it, when we send it up for sale at 'Nachtmaal' time. When we go next week, am I not to stay a few days, and visit Aunt Kotie afterwards?" "Yes, Koos, if you like. My Kafirs are already hard at work shearing the sheep. To-morrow the wool-washing down at the spruit[10] begins, with the drying and packing after that. Perhaps George would like you to take him down there after dinner to watch the Kafirs at their shearing for a while."