“Ten months, aunt.”

“How old was your baby?”

“Three days when it died.”

“It’s very hard when we must give our husbands and wives to the Lord,” said Tant’ Sannie.

“Very,” said the young man; “but it’s the Lord’s will.”

“Yes,” said Tant’ Sannie, and sighed.

“She was such a good wife, aunt: I’ve known her to break a churn-stick over a maid’s head for only letting dust come on a milk-cloth.”

Tant’ Sannie felt a twinge of jealousy. She had never broken a churn-stick on a maid’s head.

“I hope your wife made a good end,” she said.

“Oh, beautiful, aunt: she said up a psalm and two hymns and a half before she died.”

“Did she leave any messages?” asked Tant’ Sannie.

“No,” said the young man; “but the night before she died I was lying at the foot of her bed; I felt her foot kick me.

“‘Piet,’ she said.

“‘Annie, my heart,’ said I.

“‘My little baby that died yesterday has been here, and it stood over the wagon-box,’ she said.

“‘What did it say?’ I asked.

“‘It said that if I died you must marry a fat woman.’

“‘I will,’ I said, and I went to sleep again. Presently she woke me.

“‘The little baby has been here again, and it says you must marry a woman over thirty, and who’s had two husbands.’

“I didn’t go to sleep after that for a long time, aunt; but when I did she woke me.

“‘The baby has been here again,’ she said, ‘and it says you mustn’t marry a woman with a mole.’ I told her I wouldn’t, and the next day she died.”

“That was a vision from the Redeemer,” said Tant’ Sannie.

The young man nodded his head mournfully. He thought of a younger sister of his wife’s who was not fat, and who had a mole, and of whom his wife had always been jealous, and he wished the little baby had liked better staying in heaven than coming and standing over the wagon-chest.

“I suppose that’s why you came to me,” said Tant’ Sannie.

“Yes, aunt. And pa said I ought to get married before shearing-time. It is bad if there’s no one to see after things then; and the maids waste such a lot of fat.”

“When do you want to get married?”

“Next month, aunt,” said the young man in a tone of hopeless resignation. “May I kiss you, aunt?”

“Fie! fie!” said Tant’ Sannie, and then gave him a resounding kiss. “Come, draw your chair a little closer,” she said, and, their elbows now touching, they sat on through the night.

The next morning at dawn, as Em passed through Tant’ Sannie’s bedroom, she found the Boer-woman pulling off her boots preparatory to climbing into bed.

“Where is Piet Vander Walt?”

“Just gone,” said Tant’ Sannie; “and I am going to marry him this day four weeks. I am dead sleepy,” she added; “the stupid thing doesn’t know how to talk love-talk at all,” and she climbed into the four-poster, clothes and all, and drew the quilt up to her chin.