The First of April.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVI, Issue 74, 29 March 1902, Page 1 (Supplement)

The First of April.

(By Kate M. Cleary.)

One would have thought he was going to Siberia. So loth was he to go —so tenderly detaining was sbe—so heartbroken both. | " I'll be back. to-morrow affcerj noon," he promised her for the tenth ! time. " I don't know how lam to get the business done. I'll be thinking of you all the time." "But, oh, Victor, you will have the change of scene—and travel. You won't; mind so very much, but I mast sit here and miss you every hour." " I do wish mother would get here to-night. She would be such company for you. In her last letter she said she woald surprise us. And I do want her to see what a jewel I've won !" Here he kissed the jewel. " I wish I need not go, love. But for the firm—" He broke off to kiss her again. '" Send Suaan for one of tbe Shelgrove girls to stay over night with you, if mother has nod come by supper time." Another osculatory interruption was in order. " And do take care of yourself, darling. The weather is so uncertain." "Yes, dearest." The blue eyes tbat gazed up at him from the level of his coat lapel were drowned in tears. " If," she faltered, "if there should baa train wreok." " Oh, but there won't. You must a©t think of such things. Good-bye, sweet I I must hurry or I'll miss my train. Good-bye." There were more kisses—more tears on1 tbe part of the bride. Then a wild-eyed young man broke frantically from the door of a pretty suburban cottage, looked back once to wave a final farewell to a little pink figure standing lonely on a doorstep, caught the smoker of a train as the engine moved away from the statiion, and sank down to the solace of a cigar and the morning paper. But neither of these twin comforters could the bride of three months surcease for the sorrow which the first partibg from her handsome yeung husband had occasioned. •' I wigh I were not so foolish 1" she murmured. She turned from the window, and was looking ruefully around her pretty parlour. " I wish I bad not such a dread of Victor's mother. Eugenia Bank's mother inlaw was so disagreeable. And Laura Stevens said an angel couldn't live in the house with her husband's mother ! Victor and I are so happy ! If she should come and spoil it all—ob, dear !" And she wished for the sake of having the ordeal over that Mrs Ayer had been able to be present at her wedding, instead of being obliged to remain with an invalid daughter in the west. " I'll work and forget all about her," she decided. " I'll feed the canary and water the bulbs and finish the scarf for the dining room stand. And I shan't send for anyone to stay with me to-night. I'll let Victor see how brave I can be!" She was. about to sit down to a solitary little mid-day meal when a prolonged pressure upon the door bell sent a metallic clangour through the house. " Look out, Susan," she commanded faintly, ," and see if there is a cab at the door !" Susan squinted over the sash curtain. " There is, mam," she said. "You—may open tbe door, Susan," I she said more faintly still. She began to wish she had given Victor some intimation of the dread which oppressed her. He might not have left her alone to face this hour ! " Does Mrs Ayer live here ?" The loud, whining voice reached her distinctly. "Yes'm." " Then take this money and pay the man." A determined step came along the hall. " So you're my son's wife I" said the terrifying voice. " Whore is Victor ?" The gaunt form in the doorway was clad in alpaca that—presumably (Continued on next pßge.i

•—had once been new—aod olean. A dolman, trimmed with moth-bitten fur, served as a wrap. Froma poke ibnnet a veil depended. One mitlenned hand held a saichel. The Other was extended to the little bride, who had trembled towards her aa a bird quivers to a snake. "He had to leave town for the firm. He returns tomorrow. Will you not come to —your room —and take off your \ things? Have yon brought your trunk ?" "1 won't take off my things for I'm going out as soon aa I've got some victuals," came the ungracious response. "I'll see, then, ab«;u' getting my baggage. I've a parr Icoming and my own feather led. 1 can't sleep on the bosrd3 tb/y call hair mattresses." She drew off her mittens, displaying hands cover d to the knuckles with very old kid gloves. Young Mrs Ayres rang the boll. ••Susan, cook more chop-," eho ordered. "Do you prefer tea or coffee—mother ?"

" I don't drink one ortheo;h<?," snapped the old lady. " Nasty, nerve destroying beverages. Id- ink chocolate, thick with plenty oi whipped cream." The little bride turned a scared face to her maid. " Susan," she said, weakly, "go to the grocer's shop for chocolate, and on your way back stop at the dairy and see if you can get cream thick enough for whip ping." " It's a dreadful shiftless way of living, sending out for everything you want when you need it," commented the new comer. " When it comes cool weather I'll show you how to put down half a hog. You'U see the saving in your meat bill." Half a hog. The bride's blue eyes helplessly regarded the bride's white bands. V Don't stand," ?he urged. won't you take this chair ?" The old lady gave a grunt that might have indicated various emotions, as she took possession of the white and gold rocker.

."-You*-".furniture," she declared, 11 isn't very substantial. You've got an awful lot of trash huDg up. Some of it, though," she added, condescendingly, " is kind of pretty."

Not substantial! The beautiful Austrian bentwood, covered with tapestry copied from that at Versailles Trash ! The candelabra of wrought iron,broughtfrom a church in Luzon, the Flemish vases, the first proof cn T graving?, the lamp that hung for centuries in the gloom of a palace in Granada, the braes ecreen found in the darkest corner of a famous auction room in the French quartor of New Orleans when she and Victor were on their wedding trip! She moved towards the radiator. 1' I hope," she faltered, " you don't find it too warm !" A contemptuous sniff was her answer. " Warm ? It's never warm in these places where they have Bnakos of pipes running through them instead of good stoves. It beats Greenland in here this minute. Is there a stove in my room ■?" Isabel Ayer thought of her pretty guest chamber, with its carpet of pink and pearl moquette, its rose-petal draperies, its white fleecy rugs, its bright gas grate. » No—but there is " " Nothing but a stove will do me ? Late in the year ? Yes, but there are chilly nights in summer. I never take risks with my health. I wish you'd tell that girl I always eat eggs and bacon for breakfast. Going to bed I like a glass of wine-negus. I hope you get old port. Rich cakes j are the best kind to eat with negus. I'll make those myself. Your servant j looks sulky." " Indeed, co I" Isabel hastened to assure her autocratic connection. " She is exceedingly good tempered." 11 She'd better be with me. What ore you getting red for? I hope you're not a headachy woman. Sick wived are a heap of trouble and expenEe. I never had a headache in my life." . . • "I haven't a headache." The1 bride swallowed aDd blinked fast. "I —may —be getting a toothache——" '^Gefc it out!" came the prompt advice. " I'll go with you to the dentist's when we've had something to eat. There 1 I guess ehe's got something cooked at last." " For Susan stood in the doorway. "Luncheon is served," she said. The chops were broiled to a turn. The salad, like that of Sjdney Smiths might have " tempted the dying anchorite to eat," the home-mnde rolls were light and delicious, and the cbcoa, like Rosalind's good wine, " needed no bush" to proclaim its excellence. Mrs Ayer, senior, cut her chop— pushed.her plate away. " Take that out and cook it," she directed Susan, looking out through smoked glasses at that aghast domestic. " I don't eat my meat half raw, if others do I think this cream is sour. Eolle? Never eat them. I'll get some ryebread to-nigbfc." The bonnetted head, with its shock of untidy grey hair, coming almost to the brows, "moved discontentedly. "Do you always wear that kind of dress around the house ?" she questioned suddenly. Isabel glanced guiltily down at the pretty zephyr robe, gay with the insertions and ribbons dear to the youthful feminine heart—and to the old, it may be. "It's plain," she faltered. ; A Bilen.ee followed. Then a longdrawn sigb. Isabel wished that her

guest did not sit *itu. h*r back to the light. She would have liked to sco clearly all tb& venom she knew to be visible in that red'brown virage. "Better get prints to wear r.-.und the house. I'll help you Uin\i>.> Vns. Victor can't stand - such extravng ance." Tois'was the last straw. The young wife lifted her head, and her eyes lashed. "Victorbapboughtmenoclothing," she cr.ed. '' You forgot that we are nnly three months married." The intruder pulled higher round her chin the roiled silk muffler she w-ie. " Gut a kmper, I see," ?.hv remarked tar'.iy. " The little bride looked wildly, aronnd. Victor was out of the house —out- of the city—perhaps by this time out of the State. But that she sboii'd liick in c-urtesy to his mother . '< Won't you como and lie down awhile?" she entreated. "Yon must be fatigued after your journey." TLcic v.civ ga«ps between the words wh'ch t.bt? rider woman did not seem hi notice. "I'm ratl-er beat," admitted the person ins'de the fingcrless gloves, alpaca, and the moth-eaten mantle. These articles disappeared under an eiderdown coverlet that was like a drift of petunia blooms. " You call—me," came the drowsy command, " in time to get my parrot before dark." Isabel waited. Silence. Then there wag a tenative snore, one ' more assured, and another. So the little wife went downstairs, and climbed into the big chair that had held two on the night of their homecoming, and cried, and cried—and cried!

" Why, what is the matter, darling ?" cried an agitated voice. "At Redfield a wire intercepted me. Tbe business of the firm has been arranged satisfactorily by correspondence. I took the first train back. What has happened ?" "You—your—mother is here!" she said.

" You don't mean that my—where is my mother?" he began again. "There—" He flung round. At sight of the apparition in the doorway. " Who the deuce ?" be began. A burst of laughter, girlish, irrepressible, was his reply. " Isabel —Isabel 1" cried madcap Florence Sbellgrove, flinging aside dolman, wig, glasses and muffler, "do you not remember that this is the first day of April ? When Victor telephoned us from tbe office to come and stay with you—one of us—if your mother In law did not arrive to* day, we planned—But I didn't mean to make you cry. Ob, Isabel!" But Isabel was laughing—the laughter of relief which is rather hysterical.

Her husband waa holding her bands tightly in his own when a lady was ushered in—a slender, sweet faced lady, with the kindest eyes Isabel had ever seen.

" Mother !" cried Victor. Then with pride. " This is my wife !"

Later on they told her of a girl's wild prank. The gentle visitor laughed, and took in her own the hand of the culprit from whom taint of alien impersonation had been washed away. " I'm sure I shan't be such a despot, dear," she said. "I love you slready, Isabel."

11 You can't help tbat," returned Isabel's husband. " I'm sure I couldn't."