Barker's Lucky Escape.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 87

Barker's Lucky Escape.

A fair girl and a dapper young man sat in a fashionable drawing room in Mayfair. The young man said : "Then it is all over between us, is it?"' "It is, sir." "In that case 1 need not trespass further, Miss Bilkerson, on your valuable time." Th-3 young man rose to go. His face was pale and his eyes were moist with unshed tears. But no protest escaped his lips. Ho bore without a murmur the blow that had fallen upon him. "Stay !" exclaimed the young woman, impetuously. "I had no thought of this when you came this evening, Mr Barker, but I want you to hear the reason why I have decided that the ties which have bound us hitherto must be severed." Sho had folded her arms and stood erect before him. As she proceeded in her explanation her voice rose and her gestures became animated. "You will think it strange, and possibly unjustifiable," she said, "that I should terminate in a moment an engagement of near'v three weeks. But there are opinions, tastes, caprices if you will, MiBarker, that amount to actual convictions in persons of positive temperament and disposition, and dominate us with the force of inherited instincts or tendencies. The current of our lives has run smoothly until now. Although we have known each other only a little less than a month we have felt that we were congenia 1 - In that belief I rested," she continued, shaking hec head tragically, "until a few minutes ago. Whan you came this evening, Cyrus Barker, the illusion was dispelled. Oh, why did not seme premonition of swiftly impending desolation warn you " "What do you mean, Victoria Bilkerson? Whut have I : " '"Do not interrupt me, Cyriis Barker, she said, in a commanding voice; and, with her head thrown back and her arms waving wildly in the air, she went on : "I speak not of the crushing out of fond hopes, the w ithering of budding 1 blossoms 1 of joy, the rude awakening from dreams of paradise! What are these to us now? We J can only bow to the fate that has wrought its work upon us, and with humility go ' forward " "But what in the name of all that ig gloomy and peculiar," he interposed, "is all thi? racket about? What have I done? I "What have you done?" she echoed, shud- | deringly, as she pointed a. trembling finger at an object on the table. "You came here i this evening, Cyrus Barker, wearing a silk hat of the season of 1907 instead of the j new 1908 shape." I Seizing the scorned thing and crushing it on his head, the young man hurried out. [ In his eyes there shone the light of a I "What a narrow escape I have had ! " i he exclaimed, walking briskly along and hugging himself in ecstasy. "If it hadn't been for this hat I should have been married in three weeks more to an amateur reciter !"