MISS BLOEMFONTEIN. OUR REPLY TO THE LADY. DEAR MISS BLOEMFONTEIN,--If there is doubt about which young lady it is who has made us welcome here, there is none at all about the genuineness of your letter and yourself. Its sheets exhale the subtle perfume of the mimosa flower, its strong, free writing reveals the confidence, health, and high spirits of the graceful rider of the veldt! Thank God (and thank you also, my dear) there is no line or phrase of resistance to our suit in all your letter but has a tender phrasing or carries a compliment--so that we know you do not dislike us a tenth so much as you hate the thought of seeming light-of-love, of feeling that we have dared to pity you, of fancying we think you are to be won for the mere asking. Sweetheart, that was a clumsy letter of ours if it ruffled your maidenly sensitiveness with such misapprehensions. Henry V. was not the only one, or the last, of us Englishmen who could war with men better than he could woo women. And as Katharine looked through young Hal's rough armour into his warm and loyal heart, so we ask you to do with us. Well, well! so it was your cousin, Miss Uitlander, whose azure eyes and twining fingers sent me into my rhapsody of love, while you, the true Katharine, the real princess, have held back, hid in some leafy bower of your pretty capital. Ah, well, it was not her hand that took our heart captive. It was not her eyes that slew us. What we loved was the essence of your soul and spirit which breathed upon us from your park-like seat, from your trees and gardens, from the pretty, happy houses of your subjects. It was you we loved, dear neighbour, you whom we have admired through all your youth and never quarrelled with and never known to be at fault. As I wrote on Saturday, we still stand aside and look upon your charms of peaceful domesticity, all garlanded for your bridegroom. Still, too, we see your selfish, scheming guardian of the past fleeing from the wreck and ruin into which he has plunged your people. And we see your sworn champions in similar flight, leaving you forlorn, deserted. It is eminently womanly of you to defend these faithless gallants rather than solicit pity for yourself. It is the true maidenhood in you which makes you retire to your bower until you have forced us to acknowledge your value and earn your love. If we misjudged you and fancied you had tripped out to put your hand in ours, it was only because we were so eager and so smitten. We like you better as you are, shy and modest, proud and pure.