LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1289, 7 May 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

CUPID AT SE A. [Tinsley.] (Continued.) She asked the question as if indignant, and, without waiting for an answer, answered it herself with an emphatic ‘ Never! ’ So the matter dropped for the time, though Crace determined to return to the charge at some future period. That evening Mrs Bevan, walking on the beach, pensive, and looking through the gray dusk out to the sea, thought of her husband very much indeed. Returning home, she was accosted by a gentleman in the uniform of a naval officer, and ho said, ‘Mrs Bevan, I believe?’ He didn’t look like a robber, and so Mrs Bevan didn’t faint. She replied, courteously but coldly, ‘ That is my name, sir. Have I the—’ ‘No,’ was the answer ; ‘but allow me to introduce myself—Frederick Newton, of her Majesty’s navy,’ ‘ Well, sir ? ’ said Mrs Bevan. But Fred Newton had stopped short; and as he stood before her, cap in hand, he looked so comically embarrassed that Mrs Bevan felt a strong inclination to laugh. ‘Well, sir, she said again, ‘I am at a loss to know —’ ‘ Why I addressed you ? So am I, except that I have followed you from your house and—and— ’ She caught him up quickly. * And you call yourself and officer and a gentleman ? ’ ‘ Pardon me, madam; it was not you I wanted to see. That is -I mean—l thought —I hoped it was some one else ! ’ he gasped out. Mrs Bevan stared in astomshment. Here was a person, apparently a gentleman, having stopped her in the ctreet, and addressed her by name, now admitting that he had followed her from h r house, yet telling her he hoped it was some one else. Did he suppose she had changed on the way ? ‘Come,’she said, ‘that is a very candid confession. May I ask whom you expected to see ? ’ ‘ A young lady who is a Quakeress. She entered the house you came from, ho re plied. A light dawned on the matter, and the mind of Mrs Bevan saw its way at once to as merry a piece of mischief as she had ever practised when merry and mischievous Florrie Bussell. ‘ You are acquainted with the lady ? ’ she asked. * I followed her from Portsmouth this afternoon,’ was the reply. ‘I saw her enter your house. I—l—’ ‘You think her very nice?’ queried Mrs Bevan. * I think so,’ he answered. ‘ You would like to know her ? ’ ‘ I’m sure I should,’ he said quickly and warmly. So queatiomng and answering they walked —he courteous and deferential, half shy and half frank, with a boyish candour that was amusing in its impudence. Mrs Bevan, with that wit which is said to be keener than a sword in women, saw at once the true state of the ca ; e. It was love, she whisperelto herself—love at first sight. Had Grace seen him, and was she aware that the officer of her Majesty’s navy had followed her? Me'ry and mischievous Mrs Bevan determined to find that out for herself, and if Grace— And then she stopped; but the thought was of marriage. Yes; Florence Bevan, who a few hours before had warned her friend ag-dost thinking of such a ‘fatal step,’was now ready, with the most delightful inconsistency, to be the first to help her into the trouble, Fred Newton was dismissed with a permission to call the next morning at the house, and was promised that he should be introduc d as a friend. Did he whistle as he went to 1 is ship, riding at anchor in the Roads, that night? Yes; and the air was ‘ Froggy would a■wooing go.’ Mrs Bevan, like a skilful politician, broached not a word of the subject that night, although in that most delightful time for ladies before retiring for rest, the last ten minutes’ chat, the ilea was uppermost in her mind; and as she sat looking at her young friend brushing out the wealth of her nut-brown hair, the laugh around hsr mouth would break out and would have betrayed her to any one but unsuspicious Grace. Mrs Bevan’s last words that night to her young friend were, ‘Marriage, my dear, is very nice if you can only keep your husband in order afterwards, and always have your own way.’ With which piece of woman’s philosophy ringing in her ears Grace went to bed. Mrs for her part, horrified her mother by a display of what the elder lady termed ‘childish weakness.’ Actually, before that strong-minded lady’s very eyes, Mrs Bevan took out the portrait of the man who had sworn to love and cherish her, but who had yet, as the mother-in-law put it, ‘ cruelly deserted her,’ and had a good cry over it. ‘Yes,’she replied, to the mother’s observation that her husband had been cruel—‘yes ; but I promised to honoraud obey him, and—and —’ And there she stopped. She did not like to say that allowing any one, even her own mother, to speak [against her husband was scarcely ‘honoring’ him; rather, as Grace had put it, sacrificing her own se’f-ie spect. And somehow Mrs Bevan felt the words true. The mother-in-law retired, offended by her daughter's display of ‘weakness ; ’ -while Mis Bevan went to sleep with her husband’s likeness under her pillow. The morning, however, such a contradiction is woman, brought a new train of thought. Mrs Bevan put away the likeness with scarcely a look at it, and that look was c< ld or sleepy, I don’t know which. With Grace at breakfast, too, she positively refused to bear the name of Mr Bevan Anything else -love, marriage, honeymoon delights, or death—but Mr Bevan. No ! Grace attempted to go into the question. It really appeared to pain her, this wasted life of a lady living out of her happiness. A kind of ‘ social exile ’ she called it. . Mrs Bevan cut her short, however, with the remark—somewhat rude, I am afraid — ‘Grace dear, don’t bo*her.’ Then suddenly jumping up from her chair, she exclaimed, ‘ Oh, there’s Mr Newton passing ! ’ Now the breakfast room looked out upon the parade aud the sea beyond it; and as Grace looked in the direction indicated, she saw a gentleman in naval-olfioer’s uniform walking slowly along. Mr Fred Newton, vith most lover-like impatience, was befoie bis time. Grace on seeing him drew back ; and Mrs Bevan, who had been watching, saw at once in her face the tell tale blush of reooguition. Besides, Grace had quickly asked, ‘ls his name Newton? Dost thou know him ? ’ ‘ Yes,’ replied Mrs Bevan. ‘ Do you ? ’ ‘ Nay ; but I do think it is the same gentleman that walked behind me from the railway station yesterday. Dost thou not think him good-looking ? ’ Mrs Bevan, who had th r ughtto throw her young friend off her guard, by the sudden and direct question, was actually suiprised herself by Grace’s imjenvc confession. And, then questioned, the little Quakeress made no secret of he • having remarked the presence of the officer and gentleman as he followed her the day before. ‘ Grace.’ Mrs Bevan, with an air of mystery, ‘ 1 have a plan.’ Grace merely replied, ‘ Hast thou, dearie?’ in a very unconcerned tore, aud somewhat cooled Mrs Bevan’s ardour. She, however, hurried Grace up to her own particular little room, and there unfolded to her the ‘plan.’ To have done so in any other place than her ‘ own room ’ would have been impossible. And what w r as her plan ? This : The artful little lady knew that at the time she had appointed for Mr Newton to call, her mother would have lift the house for her afternoon airing, or for her visit to the islaud opposite. The coast so far, th< u,

would be clear. Mrs Bevan proposed to personate Grace by assuming the dress of the Quakeress, and Grace, she determined, should for the time being become Mrs Bevan. The preliminary trial for the masquerade was executed on the instant, and the transformation was, it must be admitted, marv llously complete. The were of the same height and figure, and not unlike except in c dour of hair. Mrs Bevan p’eaded to herse’f that she had good ground for the masquesading, because she could teach a lesson to a presuming man who had dared to fallow a lady to her house, and who had even stopped herself in the street. Not that she was angry with him on that ground ; but fit w r as an excuse she thought—and with a lady any excuse, we are told, is better Ihansnne {To he continued.)