How Winnie Found a Husband... (FOR THE "FREE LANCE" CHRISTMAS NUMBER.)

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 233, 17 December 1904, Page 10 (Supplement)

How Winnie Found a Husband... (FOR THE "FREE LANCE" CHRISTMAS NUMBER.)

GOOD-BYE Winnie, love to Poll\ .ind Jaok ' A pleasant trip, and a happy Christmas'" It wa& the farewell greeting given on Thorndon railway station, to Winnie Mace by her motliei and' brothers as they started her off ou her Northern holiday. A warning whistle from the engine, a rattle and rumble from the alowly-a ailing wheelb, and. Winiiue — unattended, andi quite oompofeed — was off on her hundi ed-mile .journey to the home of Mrs. Jack, her lately-marned cousin, at Kareramo. Like the average colonial, Winnie was a self-possessed young lady, and the idea of a lonig train journey by herself appealed to hei as something piquant. Swiftly the train rattled off the long miJete, and the diversified scenery through which the journey lay afforded delightful change to Winnie after a veai 's cooping-up in her cit} home. Sombie green of mountain trees, brightened here and there by the rata blossoms, breaks of plain, whereon there waved in smiling beauty the gold>-enr-fcintecl gram, aJmosit ready for the reaper. Over broad rive-is, and through bosky defiles, still the train sped on — hamlet town, uninhabited tracts were all passed 1 , and in due oour«e Winnie had reached 1 hei destination Here there was a repetition of the old holiday scenes. Meetings of friends long parted, of. relatives sundered bv distance, who nevertheless make annual reunions at the Christmas season , a souirryittg of porters and' passengers a rumble an the roadway of speeding cabs and lumbering vams : all the familiar scenes and sights and 1 rounds of the year-end, festaval. But no one- was at the station to meet Winnie. This in no whit disconcerted her. "Serves me neht for not having sent my wire bef 01 e I left Wellington." she told herself — thnd then she set about making arrangements for completing her journey. ''Now, let me see," quoth Wiume to herself ; "I want to get to my cousin's, Mrs. Jack's, No. 24, Ashton Terrace Well that should be easy I'll see about getting a cab." A smale from Winnie at once gamed her tho services of a porter, who soon had a cab at her service, andl her box stowed under the dickie. But, the porter made a sheht mistake in giving the cabman the address Winnie had mentioned . He told the cabmaiii No. 24, Ashtonroad — and it happened that in Kareranio there was both a street and' a terrace of that name. Further, it was a fact that 24, Ashton-road, was the residence of Mr. Jack Luoas, who had staying with him for the season one of his Wellington friends, Tom Giegson. Of course, all the^e facts were unknown to Winnae. The cabman set her down at the addiest> given, but there was no one in tho house. Wmnie waited a whule, and then turned the handle of the door It opened ea&ily, so she walked in, and made herself comfortable pending the arrival of her host and hostess "Thus is just too funny for anything;," she mused. "Here I come a hundred miles to visit my cousin and playfellow I arrive to find no one at home, I take possession of the hou.se, and — here I am' Oh, well, it's all a new experience, and I'm gladl to have it. Getting out of a groove is delightful " And then, to prove her contentedne^ Wirtnae sat down at the piano, and plaved some spmchtlv tunes characteristic of her own fcehncs, until the very air seemed to be laden with a contagion of gaietv. "CharminP- positively A] '" said -i strong:, musical voice >n the dooi-wav-Winniie rose in siherht treriid,ation in explain. "Oh vou're Mr Jaok. of course. I — well I foumd tho door open

and I walked m when no one answered my knock I suppose my telegram did no t arrive in. time." Tom Giegeon. laughed. Naturally enough, he thought Mr. Jack Lucas wa^ the one Winnie meant by 'Mi. Jack," so he expJaaned "Oh, no I'm a visitor myself. I'm Mr Giegson. Mi Jack ls down town with Ins wife, on a shopping expedition. He sent me along here v, hile he waited to carrv the parcels " There was something so dioll about the way in which the last item of information was given that both auditor and speaker laughed heartily, and they were soon en rapport. They discovered that each had many tastes in common Music, golf, a love of poetry, and' a desire to look on life in its brightest aspeot. Winnie thought she had never met so pjeaisaiiit a companion ; and wharf; Tom thought was plainly expressed by his gilances. The voun? lady from Wellington was in the middle of a song concerning a damsel apostrophised as "The Ljlv of Lagwna," when she heard the dooa'

thrown, open. Theie was a clatter of a dozen pat eels falling on the table and about the room. Ther wars the froufrou of a woman's dross, as its ownei came leiburely up the passa.ge-wa\ — and then Winnie, moving forward to gLoet her old l friend, faced two total strangers, and for at leas>t once m hei life found herself utterly abashed, and unable to aitioulate «i coherent sentence. Tom Giegson, naturally the only qne m the quartette able to look on a.t the tableau unconcerned, was so btruck with the bewilderment and doubt expressed! on all three faces, that he exploded in irrepressible men lment, and lent an a>n of levity to the proceedingthat assisted to make the subsequent explanations more easy. When these were given, and the who] e party had enjoyed thorough! \ the humorous contietemps that had occurred, Greasion went for a conveyance, and 1 in it escorted 1 Winnie to hei friend's house in Ashton Terrace, where further explanations were given, and another ebullition of laughter wa-*-evoked. "I'm sure, Mir. Gregjson, that Wwinae and ourselves owe you a great debt of gratitude for the trouble you have been put to in this matter," saad Mtb Jack. "I don't know how we can repay you '" But. Grecson thought he knew of a way in which he could be more than

well repaid. He cultivated Winnie's company during the whole of thear holiday in Kaj-eramo. On their retain to Wellington, the intimacy continued and expanded, with the result that at fch<e Chrasbmastide succeeding both. Mr. Jack and Mr Jack Lucas 1 had visitors from Wellington m the persons of Mi. and Mis Tom Oregon (nee Winnie Mace).