'
"'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.
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