Standing back beside the picturesque road encircling Windburg hill, near Cape Town, was a large, handsome house, rather long and high, however, according to the style of architecture usual in that stormy region of the world. The front windows on the ground floor opened out upon a broad terrace, or "stoop," as it is termed by the Dutch, shaded by a wide projecting trellised roof, which roof was so thickly interlaced by vines of the rich Constantia grape, the branches being then clustered over with massive bunches of the golden and purple fruit, that it was with difficulty the sun obtained a peep here and there down upon the persons beneath.

It was early in February, a late summer month in Africa, as some of my young readers may know. The grounds surrounding the house were extensive and varied, and laid out in the Cape fashion—that is to say, they owed considerably more to Southern nature's luxuriant hand for their attractiveness and abundance than to art. Such a state of things was not, however, so much the result of choice or taste of the inhabitants, as because gardeners, and indeed working hands of every kind, were sometimes impossible to obtain at any price. One advantage, and a very decided one in fresh English eyes, accrues from this style of semi-cultivation. Flowers alike rare and prized in our costly green-houses, but regarded by the Cape inhabitants as valueless, display a richness of bloom and splendour little conceived of by the natives of colder climes.

On a bright and beautiful morning (though indeed the reverse of that is the exception during the summer season at the Cape) a girl of between fifteen and sixteen years of age was ascending the broad staircase which half encircled the spacious hall within the above-mentioned house. The sunshine streamed in softened rays through the coloured panes of a high arched window, surrounding her form as an island in golden light as she passed. It was a charming face and figure, and a thoughtful yet bright expression seemed to pervade her whole person, filling it with love and intelligence.

"Oh how pleasant! all day long! how glad Lotty will be! I am sure she will. Dear, kind uncle! he always thinks of something good and delightful for every one," she ejaculated half aloud while speeding up the stairs, then along a wide passage, and finally opening the door of a bedroom at the farther end. Seated on the side of a bed was a fine but rather heavy-looking girl some two years senior of the first. Judging from her appearance, she had but just risen, for she was still clad only in a wrapper, while an abundant growth of fair hair, released from the cap which lay on the floor beside her stockingless feet, fell dishevelled upon her shoulders. Altogether, she presented a very impersonation of youthful indolence as she sat there, one hand supporting her elbow, while lazily she passed the other over her still sleepy-looking face.

"Oh, you are not up yet!" exclaimed her visitor, stopping short inside the door and eyeing the drowsy form before her with a disappointed expression.

"If I am not up, what am I?" she retorted, yawning audibly.

"I mean, you are not dressed yet."

"Have you come up here for the express purpose of giving me that undeniable piece of information?"

"Oh no," answered the other, quickly, as suddenly she bethought herself again of her pleasant news, and with recovered cheerfulness came close to her sister. "Uncle is going to take us with aunty to spend all to-day at Rathfelder's Hotel!—won't that be charming?—and all night, too, returning home to-morrow morning! Oh, isn't that nice?"

"Well, I don't see anything so particularly nice or charming in it," answered Charlotte in a wet-blanket sort of tone that very considerably quenched the light in the sweet, bright face before her.

"Don't you, Lotty? why not?"

"Oh, you will find out fast enough for yourself when there; do not tease me about it now, but go and send Susan here at once; I have been wanting her this last half hour or more."

"Last half hour? Why didn't you ring for her?"

"There! don't ask any more questions, Mechie, you are such a tiresome girl at that!" exclaimed Charlotte, impatiently; "go—do—and tell Susan to come to me; if you delay any longer it will be your fault if I'm late, and I shall get a scolding in consequence." So away went the young girl, wearing a very different aspect from that she presented when first we introduced her amidst sunbeams and smiles on the stairs.

In a pleasant room, the folding windows of which allowed egress upon the vine-covered stoop—and which windows were now wide open, admitting the fresh breeze from the in-coming ocean tide, the waters of the great Pacific, whose sparkling waves were tumbling and leaping toward the base of the Windburg far beneath—three persons sat at breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter, middle-aged and of benevolent aspect, and our little friend Maria Marlow, or Mechie, as that name is given by the Dutch. Uncle and, aunt were mere nominal appellations, adopted by the two girls according to the wish of their kind benefactors, Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter, but no relationship existed between them.

Major Marlow quitted the army and India to become a settler in Cape Colony, and with his young wife and children—Charlotte and Maria—arrived in Cape Town during what was to him the inclement season of winter. Unhappily, his constitution, already injured by long service in hot climates, gave way before the sudden change, and in one month he died of inflammation of the lungs. His equally delicate wife, who loved him tenderly, sank under her severe loss, and in a few months followed him to the grave, but not before she had, through the goodness of God, found true Christian friends in Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter, to whom she trustfully consigned the possession and care of her little girls, then two and four years of age. Being themselves childless, they willingly accepted the charge, and in time loved the poor orphans as dearly as though they were their own by birth.

Though reared with equal care and love, the two children, as they advanced in years, displayed characters and dispositions of such opposite tendencies that their noble-hearted benefactors might have experienced as much vexation and disappointment in the apparent failure of their hopes on the one hand as gratification with their success on the other, had they not based their judgment of human nature upon the unerring word of God, which tells of the strange inconsistencies, singular varieties, perversities and inborn depravity of the souls of men. Happily, however, for all those under the influence and control of these excellent, right-thinking people, they had great faith in the influence of Christian training and the power of divine grace. They remembered the promises attached to patient and prayerful sowing the seed, the fruit of which would appear in God's right time. So they kept the ancient precept: "These words shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children; and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest, down, and when thou risest up." In such a home were Charlotte and Maria Marlow reared.

But having introduced my readers thus far to Fern Bank and its inhabitants, I will withdraw, and allow Maria Marlow to continue this little history in her own simple way.