"Now, _Lucy_! _Is_ it kind to quarrel with me just before I am going away?" (Lucy's unexpected spitfire prettiness and the hint she might be willing to break off the engagement had roused John's latent manliness and he felt now he desired intensely to marry her.)
"My _dear_ John, I wasn't _quarrelling_, I've nothing to quarrel about. I only suggested to you before it was too late to change your mind that Ann Jamblin would make you a more suitable wife than I should--there, there!" (fighting off a kiss and an attempt at a hug) "remember where we are and that any one might see us and carry the tale to your mother. Of course, I am partly in fun. I know it is unkind to tease you, but somehow I _can't_ be as serious as you are.... Dear old John" (the attempt at a hug and the look of desire in John's eyes have somehow mollified her) "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.... Did I? ... I'm very sorry.... Just as you're going away, too.... There, never mind.... Look bright and happy.... Now _smile_!"
John's lips parted reluctantly and showed his pale gums and projecting eye-teeth.
"What do you think, John? ... Let's get up and walk on to the garden gates, ... what do you think my Uncle Pardew is going to give us as a wedding present? A harmonium! Won't that be nice? I shall take it out with me, and then when you teach the people to sing hymns--only you mustn't teach them Ann Jamblin's--I can play the accompaniments. And in the evenings when you are tired I shall try to play something that will soothe you. I have never tried the harmonium yet, but while you are away I mean to practise. It's just like playing the piano, only you have to keep working the pedals with your feet, like a sewing-machine. Uncle Pardew would just as soon give us a piano, but I told him what you said about the climate being bad for them. So he settled that a harmonium would do better. I wonder what other wedding presents we shall get? I can tell to a certainty what your mother will give us."
"What?"
"Why, a very large Bible, bound in shiny brown leather like those in the waiting-rooms at railway stations, with a blue ribbon marker; and a dozen silver spoons. Six large and six small. I know she doesn't consider me worthy of the spoons, but she is bound by custom. When she was married _her_ mother-in-law gave _her_ spoons.... And your father will give us a dinner-service and a gross of Sparkling Cider..."
"I hope to goodness he doesn't. The cost of transporting it up-country would be quite beyond my means. I shall tell him..."
"And _my_ father," continued Lucy, "is going to give me a gold watch and chain. And mother, my own sweet little mother--what do you think she's been working at, John?"
"Can't say, I'm sure."
"Why, _all_ the house linen.... Sheets, pillow-cases, tablecloths, napkins, and such like. She has been getting them ready ever since I was first engaged.... John! You must be _very_ kind to me in Africa."
"_Kind_ to you? Why, of course! Do you suppose I should be anything else?"
"You don't know _how_ I feel the idea of parting with mother. I love her better than any one in the world, better than you, John. She never says anything, but I know she is dreadfully unhappy at the idea of my going away so far and for so long. But then, I tell her, we can't _all_ be old maids. Father isn't rich enough to keep us all at home, and I don't want to go on working at a National school all my life.... Oh, by the bye, talking of mother, I had something so pleasant to tell you. What do you think Lord Silchester has done? You know mother was maid to old Lady Silchester? Well, when father went the other day to see Mr. Parkins about a gate he met his lordship walking out of the agent's office. They got into conversation and father told him I was going out next year to marry you in Africa. And last Wednesday mother got a letter written by Lord Silchester himself, saying he had not forgotten her faithful care of his mother and would she give the enclosed to her daughter, out of which she might buy a wedding present, something to remember Lord Silchester by when she got out to Africa. And there were four five-pound notes in the envelope. Mother was so pleased she positively _cried_."
"Yes. That was very kind of his lordship. I must tell my mother when I get back to-night. It may cheer her up."
"Oh, every one has been very nice about my engagement. The Miss Calthrops, where I was at school in Reading, told me they were working at some aesthetic mantel-borders for our house in Africa...."
"Mantel-borders! Why, we shan't have any mantel-pieces!"
"No mantel-pieces? No fireplaces?"
"Only a fire for cooking, in the kitchen, and that will be outside."
"Oh well, then, we must put them to some other use; I couldn't wound their feelings by saying we didn't want them."
"Lucy, you mustn't imagine you are going to live in a mansion in Africa. Our home will be only a cottage built of bamboo and mud and tree-stems roughly trimmed, with a thatched or a corrugated-iron roof. I don't suppose it will contain more than four rooms--a bedroom, a bathroom, a sitting-room, a store and an outside kitchen."
"Well, but even a log-hut might be made pretty inside, with some 'art' draperies and cushions and a few Japanese fans. I mean to make our home as pretty as possible. Shall we have a garden?"
"Oh, I daresay--a kitchen garden, certainly. For the Mission Committee wants to encourage the planting of vegetables and even some degree of farming, so that we may live as much as possible on local products. We are taking out spades and hoes and rakes in plenty, a small plough, an incubator, and any amount of useful seeds."
"I'm sure," said Lucy, still musing, "there ought to be lovely wild flowers in Africa and beautiful ferns, too. I mean to have a little wild garden of my own, and I shall press the flowers and send them to mother in my letters."
"I daresay you will be able to do that, when you have finished your household work and done your teaching in the school."
"Teaching in the school?"
"Why, of course you will help me in that. You'll have to take the girls' class, whilst I take the boys'."
"Oh, shall I? That's rather horrid. I didn't think I was going out to Africa to teach, just the same as at home. The National School children at Aldermaston are quite tiresome enough. What will little black girls be like, I wonder?"
"I'm told they're very quick at learning.... I am sorry," continued John, rather portentously, "that you don't quite seem to realize the nature of the duties you are about to undertake. I love you very dearly, Lucy"--and a tremor in his voice showed sincerity--"but that isn't the only reason I have asked you to come out to me in Africa and be my wife. I want a helpmeet, not a playmate; one who will aid me in bringing these heathen to a knowledge of God's goodness; not an idle woman who only thinks of picking wild flowers and ornamenting her house. Don't pout, dear. I only want to save you disappointment. You are not coming out to a life of luxury, but one of hard work. Besides, it would be hardly fair to the Mission if you did not take certain duties on yourself, because when I am married they will increase my pay to two hundred and fifty pounds a year."
"What do you get when you are single?"
"One hundred and eighty. You see a married man gets extra pay because it is always supposed his wife will add her work to his. A married missionary, too, has more influence with the natives."
"All the same, John, we shall sometimes make time to steal away by ourselves and have a nice little picnic without any of those horrid black people near us...."
"Horrid black people, Lucy, have immortal souls...."
"I daresay, but that doesn't prevent their having black bodies and looking like monkeys. However, I daresay I shall get used to them. And if I don't at first ... By the bye, John, I forgot to ask, but I wanted to, so as to relieve mother's mind--are they cannibals?"
"What, the people of Hangodi? I don't know, but I scarcely think so. And if they were, we should have all the more credit in converting them."
"Yes; but suppose they wouldn't wait to be converted, but ate you first?"
"The little I've read and heard shows me they would never do that. African cannibals, it seems, are rather careful whom they eat. Generally only their war captives or their old people. They wouldn't eat a peaceful stranger, a white man. However, on the east side of Africa the negroes are _not_ cannibals, any more than we are."
"Isn't it curious, John, to think what different ideas of right and wrong prevail amongst the peoples of the world? Here, you say, there are some tribes in Africa which eat their own relations. Well, I daresay it is thought quite a right and proper thing to do--out there--just as we in England think the old folk ought to be cherished and taken care of, and kept alive as long as possible. Only fancy how funny it would sound to us to be told that Mr. Jones showed very bad feeling because he wouldn't join his brother and sister in eating up old Aunt Brown! And yet I daresay that is what cannibal scandal-mongers often say to one another. Isn't it wonderful how one lot of human beings can think and act so differently to another lot; and yet each party considers that nobody is right but those who believe as they do? Supposing one day some black missionaries landed in England, dressed in large earrings, bead necklaces, pocket handkerchiefs and nothing else, and tried to persuade us to worship some hideous idol and leave off wearing so many clothes. How astonished we would be ... and yet they would think they were doing right, just as our missionaries do who go out to teach savages the Gospel...."