A Waif of the Plains.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 444, 8 February 1890, Page 3

A Waif of the Plains.

BY BRET HARTE. Author of ‘ The Argonauts,’ ‘ The Luck of Roaring Camp,’ ‘ Cressy,’ Etc. Copyright 1889—By the Author. CHAPTER VIII. (Continued.) Down the lane they flew—very much, as it seemed to Clarence’s fancy, as they had flown from the qld emigrant waggon on the prairie four years before. He glanced the at fluttering, fairy-like figure beside him. She had grown taller and more graceful ; she was dressed in exquisite taste, with a minuteness of luxurious detail that bespoke the spoilt child—but there was the same prodigal outburst of rippling, golden hair down her back and shoulders, violet eyes, capricious little mouth, and the same delicate hands and feet he had remembered. He would have preferred a more deliberate 3urvey, but with a shake of her head and a hysteric little laugh she only said, ‘ Run, Clarence, run,’ and again darted forward. Arriving at the cross street they turned the corner and halted breathlessly. ‘ But you are not running away from school, Susy, are you ?’ said Clarence anxiously. ' Only a little bit. Just enough to get ahead of the other girls,’ she said, rearranging her blown curls and tilted hat. ‘ You see, Clarence,’ she condescended to explain with a sudden assumption of older superiority, ‘ mother’s here at the hotel this week, and I’m allowed to go home every night, like a day scholar. Only there’s three or four other girls that go out at the same time with me and one of the Sisters—and to-day I got ahead of ’em just to see you.’ * But,’ —began Clarence. *O, it’s all right; the other girls knew it, and helped me. They don’t start out for half an hour yet, and they’ll say I’ve just run ahead, and when they and the Sister get to the hotel I’ll be there already —don’t you see ?’ * Yes,’ said Clarence, dubiously. ‘ And we’ll go to an ice-cream saloon now, shan’t we? There’s a nice one near the hotel. I’ve got some money,’ she added quickly, as Clarence looked embarrassed. ‘So have I,’ said Clarence, with a faint accession of colour. ‘ Let’s go !’ She had relinquished his band to smooth out her frock, and they were walking side by side at a more moderate pace. * But,’ he continued, clinging to his first idea with masculine persistence, and anxious to assure his companion of the power of his position. ‘ I’m in the college, and Father Sobriente, who knows your lady superior, is a good friend of mine, and gives me privileges; and—and—when he knows that you and me used to play together—why he’ll fix it so I can see you whenever we went.’ * 0 you silly,’ said Susy, 1 what! —when you’re ?’ ‘ When I’m what ?' The young girl shot a violet blue ray from under her broad hat. ‘ Why—when we’re grown up now !’ Then with a certain precision, ‘VYhy, they’re very particular about young gentlemenT Why, Clarence, if they suspected that you and me ’ another violet ray from under the hat completed his unfinished sentence,

Fleased and yet confused, Clarence looked straight ahead with deepening colour. • Why,’ continued Susy, ‘ Mary Rogers, that was walking with me, thought you were ever so old—and a distinguished Spaniard ! And me,’ she said abruptly, ‘haven’t I grown? Tell me, Clarence,’ with her old appealing impatience, ‘Haven’t I grown ? Do tell me !’ * Very much,’ said Clarence. ‘ And isn’t this frock pretty—it’s only my second best —but I’ve a prettier one with lace all down in front, but isn’t this one pretty, Clarence, tell me ?’ Clarence thought the frock and its fair owner perfection, and said so. V hereat Susy, as if suddenly aware of the presence of passers-by, assumed an air of severe propriety, dropped her hands on her side and with an affected consciousness walked on, a little further from Clarence’s side, until they reached the ice cream saloon. ‘Get a table near the back, Clarence,’ she said, in a confidential whisper, * where they can’t see us—and strawberry, you know, for the lemon and vanilla here is just horrid !’

They took their seats in a kind of rustic arbour in the rear of the shop, which gave them the appearance of two youthful bub somewhat overdressed and even conscious shepherds. There was an interval of slight awkwardness, which Susy endeavoured to displace. ‘ There has been,’ she remarked with easy conversational lightness, ‘quite an excitement about out; French teacher being changed. The girls—in our classthink it most disgraceful.’ And this was all she could say after a separation of four years ! Clarence was desperate—but as yetidea-lessand voiceless. At last with an effort, over his spoon, he gasped a floating recollection : ‘Do you still like flap-jacks, Susy?’ ‘ Oh. yes,’ with a laugh, ‘bub we don’t have them now.’

‘ And “Mose”’ (a black pointer, who used to yelp when Susy sang) ‘does he still sing with you ?’ ‘O, he's been lost ever so long,’ said Susy composedly, * but I’ve got a Newfoundland and a Spaniel and a black pony,’ and here, with a rapid inventory of other personal effects, she drifted into some desultory details of the devotion of her adopted parents, whom she now readily spoke of as ‘ papa ’ and * mamma ’ with evidently no disturbing recollection of the dead. From which it appeared that the Peytons were very rich, and in addition to their possessions in the lower country, owned a rancho in Santa Clara, and a house in San Francisco. Like all children, her strongest impressions were the most recent. In the vain hope to lead her back of this material yesterday he said : ' * You remember Jim Hooker?’ ‘ Oh, he ran away—when you left I But just think of it! The other day when papa and I went into a big restaurant in San Francisco, who should be there ivaiting on the table yes Clarence—a real waiter bub Jim Hooker! Papa spoke to him, but of course,’ with a slight elevation of her pretty chin, ‘ I couldn’t, you know ; fancy—a waiter.’ The story of how Jim j Hooker had personated him stopped short upon Clarence’s lips. He could nob bring himself now to add that revelation to the contempt of his small companion that, in spite of its naivete, somewhat grated on his sensibilities. ...;•

‘ Clarence,’ she said, suddenly,: turning towards him mysteriously, and indicating the shopman and his assistants, ‘ I really believe those people suspect us.’ , ‘ Of what ?’'said the practical Clarence.. ‘ Don’t be silly,) Don’t you see,how, they ,are starjng,?’, fcyhicd. 'Utwii&fa Lxe k&iig ■\ 1 ■ --.V. J;--- l . ■ 1 ' * r..‘,

? \ : -f V a " ’ \ : •' f». /; v.< ? r 1 ’ Clarence was really, unable to detect the least curiosity on the parUof theTshopman, or that anyone exhibited the slightest'concern in him or his companion. But he felt a return of the embarrassed pleasure he was conscious of a moment before. ‘ Then you’re living with your father ?’ said Susy, changing the subject. ‘You mean my cousin,’ said Clarence, smiling, ‘you knew my father died long i before I ever knew you.’ >

‘Yes; that’s what you used to say, Clarence, but papa says it isn’t so.’ But seeing the boy’s wondering eyes fixed on her with a troubled expression, she added quickly, ‘ Oh, then, he is your cousin !’ ‘ Well, I think I ought to know,’ said Clarence, with a smile, which was, however, far from comfortable, and a quick return of his old unpleasant recollections of the Peytons. ‘ Why, I was brought to him by one of his friends.’ And Clarence gave a rapid boyish summary of his journey from Sacramento, and Flynn’s discovery of the letter addressed to Silsbee. But before he had concluded, he was conscious that Susy was by no means interested in these details, nor in the least affected by the passing allusion to her dead father and his relation to Clarence’s misadven cures. With her rounded chin in her hand, she was slowly examining his face, with a certain mischievous, yet demure abstraction. ‘I tell you what, Clarence,’ she said, when he had finished, ‘you oughb to make your cousin get you one of those sombreros, and a nice gold-braided scrape. They'd just suit you \ And then—then, you could ride up and down the Alamade when we are going by.’ ‘But I’m coming bo see you at—at your house, and at the Convent,' he said eagerly ; ‘ Father Sobriente and my cousin will fix it all right’

But Susy shook her head with superior wisdom. ‘No ; they must never know our secret! —neither papa or mamma, especially mamma. Nor they mustn’t know that we’ve met again— after these years !’ It is impossible bo describe the deep significance which Susy’s blue eyes gave to this expression. After a pause she went on—‘No! We must never meet again, Clarence, unless Mary Rogers helps. She is my best—my onliest friend, and older nor me having had trouble herself, and being expressly forbidden to see him again. You can speak to her about Suzette - that’s my name now; I was rechrisbened Suzette Alexandra Peyton by mamma ; and now, Clarence,’ dropping her voice and glancing shyly around the saloon, ‘ You may kiss me just" once under my hat good-bye.’ She adroitly slanted her broad - brimmed hat towards the front of the shop, and in its shadow advanced her fresh young cheek bo Clarence. Colouring and laughing, the boy pressed his lips to it twice. Then Susy arose with the faintest affectation of a sigh, shook out her skirt, drew on her gloves with the greatest gravity, and saying, * Don’t follow me further than the door—they’re coming now,’ walked with supercilious dignity past the preoccupied proprietor and waiters to the entrance. Here she said, with marked civility, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Brant,’ and tripped away towards the hotel. Clarence lingered for a moment to look after the lithe and elegant little figure, with its shining undulations of hair that fell over the back and shoulders of her white frock like a golden mantle, and then turned away in the opposite direction. He walked home in a state, as it seemed to him, of absurd perplexity ! There were many reasons why his encounter with Susy should have been of unmixed pleasure. She had remembered him, of her own free will, and, in spite of the change in her fortune, had made the first advances. Her doubts about their future interviews had affected him but little ; still less, I fear,did he think of the other changes in her character and disposition, for he was of. that age when they addod only a piquancy and fascination to her—as of one who, in spite of her weakness of nature, was still devoted to him. But he was painfully conscious that this meeting had revived in him all the fears, vague uneasiness, and sense of wrong that had haunted his first boyhood and which he thought he had buried at El Refugio four years ago. Susy’s allusion to his father and the reiteration of Peyton’s scepticism awoke in his older intellect the first feeling of suspicion that was compatible with his open nature. Was this recurring reticence and mystery due to any act of his father’s? But looking back in after years, he concluded that the incident of that day was a premonition rather than a recollection. (To be continued.)