"Ah, my first, my beloved!" he added, looking tenderly down at the picture.
"Oh, the beloved, the beautiful lineaments! My angel wife! This is surely a sister of yours, madame?" he added, fixing his eyes on Tant Sannie.
The Dutchwoman blushed, shook her head, and pointed to herself.
Carefully, intently, Bonaparte looked from the picture in his hand to Tant Sannie's features, and from the features back to the picture. Then slowly a light broke over his countenance, he looked up, it became a smile; he looked back at the miniature, his whole countenance was effulgent.
"Ah, yes; I see it now," he cried, turning his delighted gaze on the Boer- woman; "eyes, mouth, nose, chin, the very expression!" he cried. "How is it possible I did not notice it before?"
"Take another cup of coffee," said Tant Sannie. "Put some sugar in."
Bonaparte hung the picture tenderly up, and was turning to take the cup from her hand, when the German appeared, to say that the pudding was ready and the meat on the table.
"He's a God-fearing man, and one who knows how to behave himself," said the Boer-woman as he went out at the door. "If he's ugly, did not the Lord make him? And are we to laugh at the Lord's handiwork? It is better to be ugly and good than pretty and bad; though of course it's nice when one is both," said Tant Sannie, looking complacently at the picture on the wall.
In the afternoon the German and Bonaparte sat before the door of the cabin.
Both smoked in complete silence--Bonaparte with a book in his hands and his eyes half closed; the German puffing vigorously, and glancing up now and again at the serene blue sky overhead.
"Supposing--you--you, in fact, made the remark to me," burst forth the German suddenly, "that you were looking for a situation."
Bonaparte opened his mouth wide, and sent a stream of smoke through his lips.
"Now supposing," said the German--"merely supposing, of course--that some one, some one, in fact, should make an offer to you, say, to become schoolmaster on their farm and teach two children, two little girls, perhaps, and would give you forty pounds a year, would you accept it? Just supposing, of course."
"Well, my dear friend," said Bonaparte, "that would depend on circumstances. Money is no consideration with me. For my wife I have made provision for the next year. My health is broken. Could I meet a place where a gentleman would be treated as a gentleman I would accept it, however small the remuneration. With me," said Bonaparte, "money is no consideration."
"Well," said the German, when he had taken a whiff or two more from his pipe, "I think I shall go up and see Tant Sannie a little. I go up often on Sunday afternoon to have a general conversation, to see her, you know.
Nothing--nothing particular, you know."
The old man put his book into his pocket, and walked up to the farmhouse with a peculiarly knowing and delighted expression of countenance.
"He doesn't suspect what I'm going to do," soliloquized the German; "hasn't the least idea. A nice surprise for him."
The man whom he had left at his doorway winked at the retreating figure with a wink that was not to be described.
