i88 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



the veldfc; where, on long rides, you occasionally 

 recognize fragments of them flapping about dismally 

 on the bushes. 



A strict watch has to be kept on the table-napkins, 

 or they are sure to be carried to the kitchen and pressed 

 into the dirtiest of service as dish-cloths, lamp-cleaners, 

 etc. However many kitchen-cloths and dusters may 

 have been given out, you never find one which is fit to 

 touch; nor, until experience has taught you to keep 

 the paraffin and its attendant rags under lock and key, 

 and yourself to superintend the cleaning and filling of 

 the lamps, is there one cloth which does not communi- 

 cate the smell and flavour of the oil to every plate, 

 cup, and glass brought to table. Every cloth is satu- 

 rated with grease, all have large holes burnt in them, 

 and a good many have been deliberately torn into 

 quarters, or into whatever smaller sizes Phillis may 

 have judged convenient for her ends. She has spared 

 only those which, with their broad pink-and-white 

 borders — with "Teacloth" in large letters, and a little 

 teapot in each corner — have pleased her eye, and struck 

 her as suitable adornments for her person ; and which 

 accordingly you often find twisted round the woolly 

 head in place of the red and yellow turban, or grace- 

 fully draped on neck and shoulders as a fichu. 



Like other daughters of Eve, she possesses her due 

 amount of vanity, and has her own ideas — though they 

 are sometimes strange ones — on the subject of improv- 

 ing her personal appearance. If she is of a careful 

 turn of mind, and mends her own dresses — though 



