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France has not founded other countries, like her great rival, but she has made every other country the richer by the mixture with her choicest and best. The Rouxs, Du Toits, Jouberts, Du Plessis, Villiers, and a score of other French names are among the most familiar in South Africa.

Gerhardt had been there more than two weeks, and somewhat relieved the stillness that had settled over the house since the second son died in hospital. The Jouberts had dropped out of things. They had done all they could do, given all they had, and now they had nothing to look forward to, except the event to which all France looked forward.

General Joubert, or "Old Piet," as he was called by the Boers, to distinguish him from the many other Jouberts in the country, was undoubtedly a great military leader in his younger days, but he was almost seventy years old when he was called upon to lead his people against the army of Great Britain, and at that age very few men are capable of great mental or physical exertion.

He had no right to doubt the affection of the Jouberts, however; that was genuine and personal, not a smooth surface under which almost any shade of scorn might lie and laugh... was not, in short, the treacherous "French politeness" by which one must not let oneself be taken in. Merely having seen the season change in a country gave one the sense of having been there for a long time.

Not that I ever suffered much from them; I took care to turn the tables. What tricks Theodore and I used to play on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame Jouberts! Mary was always too sleepy to join in a plot with spirit. The best fun was with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose and low- spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs.