TAUGHT BY EXPERIENCE.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 1, Issue 43, 7 September 1870, Page 7

TAUGHT BY EXPERIENCE.

“ I don’t fancy the looks of your new bean, Sylvia.” | Aunt Margaret soberly adjusted her knitting-needle in the little silver sheath that was pinned to her side, and shook her head as she spoke. Sylvia Brand sat in the window opposite, with a big basket of table-linen beside her, mending with infinitesimal stitches the rents and thin spots therein to be found. For Aunt Margaret kept a board-ing-house, and Sylvia was her little right hand woman, fresh from the old home in the country. “ I am'Jne he is very handsome, Aunt Sylvia, in defence of her impugned cavalier, as she clipped the end of her thread with a pair of tiny scissors. ; “ Well, maybe he’s handsome enough, though his whiskers are too long, and there’s a bold kind of look in his eyes; but he wears too many rings, and makes too much outside show for my taste. I don’t believe your father would approve of his coming here to see you so often, Sylvia.” Sylvia tossed her little head, as if to signify that Aunt Margaret didn’t know everything. But she said no more, and the old lady fondly fancied that her little dissertation had really made some impression on the girl. “ Bless my soul!” said Aunt Margaret to herself, as she sat at her back parlour window the next Sunday afternoon, with her best gold spectacles on, and her prayerbook in her hand, “if there aint that Meacham again, coming home from church with our Sylvia, just as bold as brass. I Well, I never !” I She was at the door just as Sylvia I tripped up the steps, and with such a for- | bidding expression on her rosy old winteri apple of a face, that the cavalier instinci tively abandoned the ground, and lifting f his hat with great politeness, bade Miss ! Brand “ good afternoon.” Sylvia came blushing in, looking very pretty, and a little defiant, and hummed a psalm tune to herself as she unpinned her cherry-coloured bonnet-strings. “ Sylvia,” said the old lady, sternly, “ I don’t want to be hard on you, but I can’t, noways, allow you to be keepin’ company with that fellow. Now let this be the last of it, that’s a good girl.” I “ But, Aunty, why 1” | “ I’ve lived in London longer than you have, Sylvia,” said Mrs Margaret Coster, “ and I can judge of people by their looks I better than you. There’s no good in that flashy fellow, and so 1 tell you.” It was rather a singular coincidence, the next morning, that as Sylvia tripped down the street, Mr Fitzjames Meacham should affably join her on the corner. “ Dear me, Mr Meacham,” said the little country girl, “ who would have dreamed of meeting you ?” “ Let me carry your basket,” said the gallant Fitzjames; and Sylvia let him carry it. “I am just running down to the milliner’s to get some lavender ribbon to re-trim Aunt Margaret’s caps,” said the girl. “ She is going away this afternoon on a visit.” “ A visit ? Where 1 ” “ Oh, to a cousin she has got in Hampshire, where she always goes once a-year.” “ I shouldn’t think she could leave her establishment here.” “ Indeed, then, she can,” said Sylvia, with a toss of her head, which set all the dark brown curls quivering. “7amto be housekeeper during her absence.” “ You !” “I, and no one else ! Why, Aunt Margaret can trust me just as she would trust herself—she often says so.” “ I don’t doubt it at all,” said Mr Moacham, with a courtly inclination of Ids head. “ May 1 lie allowed to call on you during your regency, and judge for myself of your capabilities?” The very blood mounted to Sylvia’s cheek. She had not thought of this possible contingency of her aunt’s absence ; yet how nice it would be ! “\es. Come to-morrow evening,” she said on tlio impulse of the moment, as they paused on the step of the milliner’s door ; and so Mr Fitzjames Meacham passed on •- well pleased “ Aunt*largarot will never know,” thought Sylvia, with a guilty glow on her cheek; “ and it would be so pleasant! After all, I shall bo housekeeper, and I have a right to do as I please !” False logic, little Sylvia; false logic and worse judgment. But Inclination weighed the scale down too heavily against Duty. “ Now, be sure you keep the keys yourself, Sylvia,” said Aunt Margaret, “and count the silver every night; and sco'that Bridget don’t neglect the fires; and tell Uk; new waitress all about her duties.} and

see yourself that everything is looked up securely for the night, before you sleep.” “ Yes, Aunty,” said Sylvia. And the old woman set forth upon her journey with comparative peace of mind, “ For Sylvia knows just how everything ought to he done,” said Mrs Margaret to herself ; “ and I think I can trust the j child." The next morning Sylvia Brand dressed j herself in the prettiest crimson delaine in j all her wardrobe, and arranged her hair as I much like the show figure in the coiffure's window round the corner as it was a possibility for non-Parisian hands to achieve ; and, as she pinned on the little coral breastpin that had descended ftom her maternal grandmother, and slipped over her finger the one cornelian ring that Jamie Stai'ker had given her when they were school children together, Sylvia Brand knew, in her inmost heart, that she looked very pretty. (Girls always know that. Let them pretend as they will, they are always conscious of every advantage that Nature has given them ; and so they should be. A girl who undervalues her own womanly charms isn’t worth much, matrimonially or otherwise.) So Sylvia went down into the long din-ing-room, where the tables were all set away for the night, and the fire glowed in the grate like a mass of living carbuncle, and the drop-light shed its soft radiance on the little round sewing-table, and she began to wonder how long it would be before Mr Fitzjames Meacham would arrive to cheer her solitude. It was not long. Presently there was a ring at the door-bell, and Bridget announced, “Two gentlemen to see Miss Sylvy.” Mr Meacham gracefully introduced his friend, Mr Buckland—a personage with longer whiskers, and bigger finger-rings, and heavier watch-chain than even the great original Meacham. “ I know it’s taking a liberty,” said Fitzjames frankly, “ but I am sure Miss Brand will make Mr Buckland welcome for my sake.” Sylvia shyly assured him that she was very happy to see the gorgeous stranger, and Mr Meacham lost no time in making himself at home. “ It’s rneself that don’t like the cut o’ them fellows.” said Bridget, darkly, to the cook, “ and I sha’n’t go to bed until I see the house clear o' their ugly faces. “ Nonsense, Bridget” said sleepy cook, who was rolling her hair in curl papers. “It ain’t so much nonsense, maybe,” muttered Bridget, getting out her strip of soiled embroidery and her brass thimble from a dresser drawer ; “ when all the silver’s in the sideboard, and Miss Sylvy, poor dear, as ignorant o’ the ways of the world as that white kitten, bad luck to it for getting my ball of cotton under its paws !” Meanwhile Messrs Meacham and Buckland were making themselves very agreeable to our innocent little Sylvia. “If Miss Brand will pardon my officiousness,” said the former, producing a bottle from his coat pocket, “ I will invite her to drink my health in champagne. It is getting late, and delightfully as our time is flitting by, we really must not linger much longer.” “ But I am afraid of wine,” said Sylvia, timidly, as Mr Buckland brought glasses from the cupboard, with alert promptitude. “ Wine ! Champagne is notwine,” cried Fitzjames. Champagne is the dew of the morning gathered from rose-leaves! Champagne is the essence of light, and sunshine, and sparkle ! Pray taste it, my dear Miss Brand, or I shall imagine you are offended at my taking the liberty to bring it.” So Sylvia timidly tasted the amber liquid, which did taste very nicely, and looked still nicer with its crystal clearness and its floating globules of golden sparkles. And then, urged by Meacham and Buckland, she drank a little more, and still a little more, until she’ had emptied the glass. Was she growing drowsy 1 ? She tried her best to rouse herself, but her eyelids seemed weighted with lead, and her senses lulled by the narcotic fumes of poppy and mandragora. The walls swam around her ; the faces of Mr Meacham and his friend seemed to rock backwards and forwards, and to grow dim and rusty. Then came an interval, it could scarcely have been more than a second—of total obliviousness and unconsciousness. From this lethargy Sylvia seemed to awake as suddenly as if some cold hand had been laid on her throbbing forehead ; the champagne had been over-drugged, fortunately for her. And, as she woke, the chink of silver caught her ear ; she saw the two confederates kneeling at the sideboard drawers, and leisurely laying out the shining treasures which had so long formed the pride of Aunt Margaret CnvbVs housekeeping heart.

Sylvia rushed noiselessly out into the entry, nearly falling over Bridget as she did so. “ Oh, Bridget, Bridget! call the police !” she whispered huskily. One glance through the half-open door satisfied shrewd Bridget how matters were standing. She turned the key in the lock with a vicious jerk. “ Sure, it’s they’ll be the two rats tight in a trap,” she chuckled. “ Now Biddy Malony ’ll just show you what stuff her lungs is made off!” “ Police ! police !” bawled Biddy from the front steps, making a speaking trumpet impromptu of .her two red hands, held up to her mouth. In less than half a minute - —-for a wonder—the guardians of the public peace were on hand, listening to Sylvia’s wild, incoherent story, and Bridget’s energetic comments. Just two minutes subsequently, Mr Meacham and his friend, wildly endeavouring to make good their escape through windows that were tightly barred and shuttered on the outside, were seized by the police. “ It’s Black Dan and his mate,” said the stouter of the three policemen, as he deftlv emptied the plethoric pockets ol the baffled adventurers. “ You needn’t look so cross about it, my tine fellow ; we’ve been on your lay this some time, but we didn’t expect to nab you quite so soon.” When the silver was counted over and proved to be safe, the house cleared of the obnoxious guests, and the doors locked and bolted, Sylvia went into hysterics with her arms round honest Bridget’s neck. Aunt Margaret came home the next day, and heard the whole story without a reproachful word. She did not even say, “ I told you so,” for which kindly forbearance Sylvia in her inmost heart thanked her aunt deeply. “ Well, ray child,” she said, stroking clown Sylvia’s hair, “ we all have our lessons to learn in this world, and I don’t think you’ll have this lesson to learn a second time. And now, Bridget, make me a cup of good strong tea, and we’ll drink it in peace and quietness.” But Sylvia had uo more dashing cavaliers, and Jamie Starker’s (her country beau’s) chance was better than ever.