CHAPTER XVII.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 92, 7 March 1885, Page 4

CHAPTER XVII.

" WHERE SHALL I GO ?" " As one who journeying drops the rein in haste, Because a chasm doth yawn across his way, Too wide for leaping, and too steeply faced For climber to essaySo I, being checked, am with mj path at strife !" Ingelow. "It seemed— it seemed so easy !" she went on, her head drooping, her hands nervously clasping and unclasping. "In fact, it seemed the only way at the time. I knew how hard uncle was— how inexorable. It all flashed on me like a lightning-stroke as we talked yesterday morning. I said to myself : *We are so much alike. Perhaps it was for this very reason Heaven made us so— to help one another. I can take bis place — personate him ; it will be for only a few hours, and there can be no danger, and he will escape.' I did not pause to think of the complications which might arise, of all the danger possible." *' My poor lamb !" murmured compassionate Aunt Dorothy. " And when once the rash purpose had taken root," she wen ion, tremulously, " plans and artifices were suddenly clear as day to me. I knew the suit Voyle had worn the day he was arrested— one of blue flannel. In his closet hung that of last summer— more worn, but otherwise similar, Persons to whom Voyle's every change and shade of raiment was not familiar would never notice the difference. I — you can guess what if. did, Aunt Dolly." " You put it on !" whispered Miss Vernell, solemnly, much as she would have spoken if to her had just been confessed the crime of Cain. "I was desperate /" with sudden vehemence, conscious of the shock the dear, prudent, strait-laced little old soul had received. "It all seemed bo unfair, so unjust,

so— Aunt Dolly, if you had just one brother, whom you loved dearly, wouldn't you do exactly th© came to save and aid him— wouldn't you ?" Miss Dorothy looked down on the eager lips, "the lighted young eyes," and before her rose another face— " With soft brown curia and a brow of snow." Poor Willis ! she had loved him dearly, and she would — yes, she would have masqueraded to save him from ignominy. And so she told the girl, with a gasp wrung from her by the wrench of a remorseless Puritan conscience. "So you see in the cell I just slipped off the dress I wore over the suit, and Voyle put it on without removing his clothes. It was chilly yesterday, you remember, so I, had on my Mother flubbard wrap. This also helped to disguise him. My thick veil was tied tightly over the little close black straw turban he wore. I had taken the precaution ever to brine rubbers. In these his shoes were not noticed. I forgot nothing— not even gloves. You know yourself how perfect was the disguise." Miss Dorothy flung up her hand, palms outward, an! showed the whites of her faded blue eyes. " Such a scare, Vella ! My child, you can't imagine my feelings. Mrs Charu came and told me Vella wanted me, and no one but me. As soon as I got inside the door of your room it was locked behind me. And then — off came hat, wrap, gloves, dress, and there stood that lad ! I opened my mouth to scream— l assure ycu, my dear, I had actually got that far — whsn he clapped his hand over my lips, and said he : * Aunt Dolly, where do you expect to die when you go to ? If you don't help me out of this scrape, I'll haunt you as sure as ever you're a disembodied spirit.' It was only some time afterward I began to think that didn't sound exactly right." Volla laughed. Poor Aunt Dorothy ! her perception of a joke was by no means acute. Just now there was in her tone a vast amount of puzzled, feeble shrewdness. '• You ought to know Voyle's nonsense by this. But you did help him all the same." "I did !" with a portentous reminiscent shake of the head. ** And of aIL the strings, and buttons, and hooks, and draping elastics ever a costume was burdened with, that was the vrorst And what with Voyle not knowing from Sir Launcelot how to manage them, and my poor old fingers shaking so they wouldn't, do them, we had a time !" Vella's eyes sparkled. "I can imagine it." "The worst of it was I felt confident every one would see through the deception. What with that cunning Eliso, with her eyes as big as saucers, and that cyclone of a widow, and that sleek cat of a lawyer Grimes, all on the alert, I saw no chance of escaping discovery. But not a soul I saw an inch beyond his nose. ' Thus conscience does make cowards of us all !' as Byron says." Vella put her finger on her lip, in prettily feigned meditation. ' ' Byron ? or was it Shakespeare ?" " It doesn't make any difference," airily decided Miss Dorothy. " It was a poet anyway." And this fact could not be gainsaid. In the adjoining room a clock struck four. The sound recalled the girl to herself. "It is growing late. We are forgetting our plans, Aunt Dolly. Where am Itogo ? What am I to do ?"