LITERATURE.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1032, 9 May 1883, Page 4

LITERATURE.

MRS STAMER.

( Continued.)

“ No, no,” says Mrs Yy vyan earnestly. “ Mrs Stamer has not been well, and says wants to get away quietly: - A strange face might upset her.” So saying she stoops, and lifting Dulce with the utmost gentleness, bears her away from the General. “Did you enjoy yourself, darling?” asks Mrs Stamer as she and the child rolling home swiftly beneath the light of the quiet stars,.'through the scented lant-sj heavy with dew and moonshine.

“ Yes, so much,” says the little one, “ But I went to sleep; and he was so good to me, ond nursed me so comfortably.” .“Who did, darling?” she asks indifferently. “ The strange man.” “ What man?” cries her mother, with ns much force as though some one had had struck her. A passionate throb takes her heart; all her pulses beat tumultously. “ The tall thin man,” says the child, simply ; “ they call him the General !” “Ah ?” says Mrs Stamer. She inhales her breath quickly, making a sound like a sob, and leans back in the carriage.

Chapter V.

Last night the General slept little, but asked many questions. He had kept one of the Clares (on their return from the Grange) in the smoking room until an unconscionable hour, probing him unmercifully about The Holmes and its inmates, until the poor yonng man’s lids fell down over his eyes. Then the General, seeing no more was to be gained from him generously sent him to bed. . But bed for the General that night meant nothing less than torment. Something had happened to wake within him memories of a past, now three years old. He had not been General Steyrie then, but a Colonel, but life at that time had shown him its sweetest and its bitterest sides. He had been wrong then, he knows that now—he had been wrong indeed, all through, but only discovered his error when too lat6. And last night-—a few honrs ago, a little baby face, a tiny, rose-tinge‘d thing, framed in a glory of hair, yellow as nncnt corn, had raised within him a demon of remorse and longing that will not be laid. This morning breakfast is a mockery to him, so unnerved is he by his long vigil. He figits secretly, while the others eat their kidneys and toast, and laughs over last night’s proceedings; and when decency allows he rises, and finds a hat, walks qnickly down the stone steps of Claremont and tnrns eagerly in the direction that leads to The Holmes. Yes. Now, at once and forever, he will get rid of the knawing anxiety, the consuming hope that has been destroying him for honrs, and when he has walked two miles, and his heart had begun to beat feverishly, he comes face to face with Mrs Stamer at her entrance gate.

For a long minute they gaze at each other in a silence that may be felt. The General breaks it, “ I was not mistaken, then,” he says in a low tone. “No? and what then?” says Mrs Stamer in a cold clear voice, fnll of defiance. She raises her eyes proudly to his, though in very truth her soul is fainting within her. “ After three long years of incessant search to find you here—of all places—unawares 1” he says, gazing earnestly at her. He seems lost in astonishment. He cannot, though the doing so would be a relief to him, avert his eyes from the fair but wrathful face that returns his glance so steadily. Well, yon have found me,” she says, still defiant; “ and what have you gained by your discovery ?” “ Not much, perhaps, in your eyes; but to me this accidental meeting has brought comfort that is almost overpowering. I have seen yon—you are alive and well. It is a great deal. You cannot, of course, understand how much—and besides all this, I have held the child in my arms I She slept here,” (laying his hand upon his heart with a rather simple gesture). “ She had her little arras around my neck; she was happy with me.” “ My daughter told me yon had been kind to her,” says Mrs Stamer, coldly. She speaks as one might who is acknowledging a small kindness done to her in an acquaintance of a day. The settled distance of her manner cuts him to the heart. , . ' '

“It was nothing,” he said, his colour rising, his voice growing tremulous; “nothing to yon, at least; but it filled me with a joy I have not known for years—for three long years. I can feel the pressure of her little head,” “Dolce was grateful to you,” says Dulce’s mother, icily. “ I regret she cannot thank you in person.” “ 1 Dolce, ‘ ‘ She was Audrey once,” exclaimed he, qnickly. , “ I changed all that when I changed —many other things. Dalce suits her best—my sweet!” As the last words fall from her lips they soften them and her whole face grows alight with the rapturous glow born of the most eternal love of all.

“ May I not see her ?” asks the General very humbly. “Surely I have some claim to—”

“She belongs to me,” says Mrs Stainer, interrupting him with some passion. Is there not- fear mingled with it ? She turns aside from him as though his presence was no longer tolerable. “You are in mourning” he says quickly, bent on detaining her for even one more precious minute. “ Sombre colours become those who are widowed,” replies she, with her eyes on the ground. «But the child ?” exclaims he in deep agitation." “Last night I noticed it—she toois in mourning !” “ It is only right she should be so ; she has lost her father,” says Mi*

Stamcr. She moves away from him to where the giant elms are throwing dark shadows on the grass, and soon is lost to sight amid their gloom. f Looking older, grayer, the General goeb down the dusty road, lost in saddest thought; coming to a stile, he steps over it and enters a green as emerald, at the side of which a little stream runs gurgling with tremulous glee, as it rushes to meet the great ocean that lies in a mist far below. A mighty fir uproars itself in the corner of this field, and, leaning against it,’the General gives himself up to the most miserable reflections, when a ; sound comes to him —a fresh, sweet sound, that Thrills him to to his heart’s core, and uplifts it to know that even to him there is joy upon the blessed earth.

It is a child’s voice singing, and the child herself is coming to him across the snnlit sward, with her dark' eyes : all aglow and her-lips parted, and her hair flying behind her like a golden glory. She has crimson poppies in ; her -hands and is holding them . close to her little bosom, as though filled with love for them, as she speeds along. ; She has escaped from her nurse, and in the delicious sense of freedom is chanting alond a merry lilt. • . But even as the General gazes upon her a change passes over the little face. As if to prove that ever pain must mingle with our dearest gladness here, the child pauses in her happy run ; her song ceases. The small face puckers ominously, and sinking on the ground, she bursts into a flood of tears. In a moment the General is at her side, has lifted her in his strong arms, and is asking her what has happened. He presses her tangled yellow head against his breast, and betrays such genuine grief at her mishap that the child is half consoled. Ho may be unlearned in childhood’s ways, yet is with a touch that a woman might have envied, because of its gentleness, that fye sets about discovering the damage done.

Dulce is not shy. She has ceased crying; and is now lifting her angelic eyes to his, she poirits sorrowfully to her little rounded bare leg, os though demanding sympathy. 'lt is a small affair, after all—the sting of a venomous nettle, that had raised a pink flush upon her tender skin. The General stoops and kisses the soft injured limb with the greatest tenderness.

He even removes the shoe and sock from her foot, with a view to ascertaining whether or not the wicked nettle has penetrated through the strong kid. Then with an awkwardness unrivalled he draws on the sock again, and after a fierce and protracted battle with it, he reduces the button of the shoe to subjection. Dulce is delighted with him. She has quite adopted him by this time, and is sitting without the slightest regard for decency with her arms tightly clasped around his neck, and her cheek rubbing its velvet softness against his.

“ Does he know mamma ? Does he love her?” The General flushes. “ Yes, he has seen mamma. Does she love her ?” “ Oh, yes. Mamma is beautiful and must be loved. She, Dulce, loves her most, though, when she is crying, and she is often crying, poor mamma. Then Dulce comforts her. Mamma says she is her only comfort,” “ And Dnlce’s papa ?” “ Papa is dead. Mamma has said so. He is buried down, down,” pointing to the ground. “ But mamma told her only yesterday that she must love him always, even though she may never see him till she goes up to Heaven. He was the best man that ever lived,” says ' Dnlce, sweetly, as if repeating an old lesson, looking straight into the General’s abashed eyes. “He was not,” says the General, suddenly losing his head. “ But he *was,” declares the child indignantly, regarding him with a sudden accession of disfavour. Mamma says so.” “ Mamma !”

“ Yes, my mamma—and she knows. You knew him too,” says the little one, with all a child’s singular astuteness. “Tell me about him: was he big?— •tall.” She had forgotten her anger of a moment since, and is now gazing at him with one of her sweetest smiles.

“ Yes,” says the General. “ And with gray hairs, like yours ?” stroking his grizzly locks. “ Yes, just mine. He was old, too,” says the General, with a touch of illsuppressed bitterness. “ Had he nice eyes, like yours ?’’ “ Yery like mine, my angel.” And then the child tightens her arms about him, and entreats him to come home with her to her own house, and she will show him her pretty garden, and her ducks, and her little soft yellow chicks, and the rose that has : bloomed upon her own tree.

But the General declares that he cannot come to-day; some other time. He breaks off abruptly in the middle of a sentence, and bends his head upon his breast. Growing frightened, the little one tries to raise it, and she sees that tears are running down the General’s cheeks, arid that he is crying. (To he continued.)