LETTER THE SECOND. (Lizzie Chapman to K. W.) Sea Girt, August —, 18—.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 57, 5 July 1884, Page 5

LETTER THE SECOND. (Lizzie Chapman to K. W.) Sea Girt, August — , 18 — .

My dear Kate, — I have owed you a letter for a perfect age, but I don't believe 1 should write you now were it not for a momentous piece of news I have to convey. You remember when we wore at school they made us read in our French class some goody, stupid letters of Madame de S<saigan. I only recollect one now, and that is the very bright one in which she informs her daughter of the engagement of Mademoiselle de Montpensier to the Due de Lauzun. I opened my book, the margins of which bore token of our interest in each other, if not of our attention to thelesson, and beg^an : '• lam going to tell you the most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvellous, the most miraculous, the most — " Here I shut the book, and concluded I could tell my own story better in my own words. So here goes, in two questions — "Who do you think is engaged?" and you answer, as I knew you would, "Why, you yourself, you little goose !" Correct as usual, my far-sighted friend. "But to whom?" With your usual perspicacity you respond, "Jim Harper." There is where you have made a grave mistake. It ought to be Jim, but it isn't. I declare the thing is so mixed up that I don't know whether to laugh or cry, aad I am not sure I shall ever be aole to i give you any clear idea of the matter. I wrote you all about Jim last winter. " But it's not Jim," you say. Do hush, and let me go on in my own way. Well, you know I used to go over to New Jersey with Edith Paton, and spend Sunday at her aunt's. They were strict enough at the school, but how could they imagine that her Aunt Ida had an adorable husband who invited all the nice young men he knew to come up and see us when we went there ? What stories that house, particularly the conservatory, could tell ! Well, there— in the house, I mean — I first met poor Jim Harper. He isn't a bit poor, but you know what I mean. He was a very fascinating fellow, as everybody confesses, and when he first turned his big dark eyes on me I thought him the most handsome and wicked -looking fellow I ever saw. Now, I wouldn't like a young man a bit better because he was wicked ; that would be very wrong, of course ; but at the same time I shouldn't let it interfere with my loving a man, if he was sorry for it. Well, Jim was ; at least he told me so, and how he was going to turn over a new leaf, and all that. Of course he didn't tell me all this the first time we met, but after we got better acquainted. What a winter that was ! We were out at X , you remember, every month. Such parties and tableaux, and skating and sleigh rides ! and Jim always by. Well, long before tho winter was over we were engaged. It happened ono moonlight night in the conservatory, and Jim promised he would bo a good boy. "\\ c had a dreadful time with our letters, and once or twice I came within an ace of being caught. Jim and I met very seldom, as you can imagine ; but one day he sent me a very pitiable note asking me to meet him at a certain art gallery. He was going away for some weeks, or 1 have forgotten now what he did want to see me about. I had to tell Miss M an awful fib ; but I did get away, and then was in mortal terror lest someone should see me. I got to the gallery safely at last. Jim was not there (I was fifteen minutes too soon, but he ought not to have kept me waiting). It was an exhibition of Ruskin s drawings. Now you know that if there is one thing I loathe in this world, it is Ruskin. I think I hate him even more than Browning. But there I was, and I had to go round and look at those wretched things, when suddenly a gentleman entered. He attracted my attention at once, and paid me the compliment of staring at me. He was a very handsome fellow, quite young, I should judge, and had such a good innocent face. Oh, I thought, if Jim were only as good as that stranger looks ! I got embarrassed at last by his stare, and the fear that somebody I knew would come in and find me there with Jim. After an age, as it seemed to me, the stranger left, and a few minutes later came Jim with some very lame excuse about being delayed. (He was exactly on time, but I took good care not to let him know it. ) We went out and had a lovely lunch at Delmonico's, and no one was ever the wiser for our little spree. But now, Kate, prepare yourself for the most wonderful thing you ever heard in your life. lam engaged to that handsome, innocent-looking boy I saw in the art gallery. You could never guess how it happened, and so I will not keep you in suspense, but tell you at once. You know we have spent several summers at Sea Girt, a lovely place on the New Jersey coast, and there we went again this year. Jim came to see me quite regularly, and a3 his family were known to papa, our intimacy was tacitly allowed without anyone asking where we first became acquainted. Well, last Saturday I had a note from Jim saying he was coming down to spend Sunday at the hotel ; s=o 1 drove to the station to meet him, and imagine my astonishment when the handeome stranger of the art gallery got off the cars ! Ho stared at me, of course, but I don't think he saw Jim, who was at the end of the long train. Oh, Kate, I can never tell you what a wretched two days I passed. Jim went on a dreadful spree at the hotel with some of the fellows from the Branch, and the next day we had an explanation (some people would have called it a quarrel), and we broke our engagement— l mean, of course, that I broke mine. It nearly killed me, and 1 just cried my eyes out. Jim went back to New York in the Sunday night train, and I know I shall never see him again ; and it will nerve me right, too, for treating a poor fellow so cruelly. I could have pardoned him his disgraceful conduct at the hotel, but, Kate, it came out in the course of our explanation that he had been flirting with Fred Parker's sister, and that ended everything -any man that would flirt with such a washed-out looking blonde as that ! Well, the next day— Monday — I went down to Mrs Parker's, bright and early, to see how much truth there was in that story about Jim, and what do you think? There sitting on the piazza was my stranger, and the next moment Mrs Parker had introduced me to Mr Harry Payne, a college friend of her husband's. You soon become acquainted at the sea-side, and the previous meeting somehow made him seem not entirely a stranger to me. I suppose he felt the same way ; at any rate, we were soon chatting away as merry as could be, and I forgot all about Jim's flirtation with Alice Parker. The next day Mr Payne called; that evening we walked on the beach ; the next day we drove up to the Branch ; and Wednesday— YVell, Kate, all I am going to tell you now is that Wednesday we were engaged. Perhaps you think it was quick work. Well, it did take my breath away ; but how could I help it ? 1 do feel sorry for him— Harry, I mean, not Jim — he is so good and young and innocent and enthusiastic, and so learned ! Just think, he reads Browning, and I really think there must be something in Browning, or Harry would not like him ; so I said I liked Browning — so I do, for Harry's sake. And then he admires

Ruskin so much, and of course I do, for did I not see Harry first in that dreary exhibition ?— I mean it seemed dreary then, but, as I now recollect them, the drawings were delightful. Strange, neither of us has mentioned that meeting. Well, as I was saying, I do feel sorry for Harry, he is so good and innocent. Poor fellow ! just think, he told me that night on the beachthat Wednesday niecht— -that I was the first woman he had ever loved. How little experience some men have had, Kate ! But then women are so much older and maturer for their age than the other sex. lam sure it wasn't the first time, or even the second, that 1 had been in love, but I did not tell Harry that. Why should I blight his first ardent affection by such a confession ? and then I am sure I do love him more than anybody I ever saw, except Jim, and Jim, of course, is out of the question. Well, I must come to an end. We are to be married in the holidays, and I suppose I shall have a grand wedding at the church. Men always say they prefer a quiet wedding, but we women know better. They are the first to want a fine display, and chow the world what a prize they have carried off, For my part, I don't want Jim to think I am not proud of Harry, for I am, and I mean to have a perfectly stunning (forgive this reminiscence of our school-day slang) wedding. I don't know whether Harry can afford to go to Europe, but I presume so, or he would never have thought of marrying a girl in my set. However, I will tell you all the particulars when we meet. Yours with undying affection, Lizzie Chapman,