A DOMESTIC DRAMA.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 473, 21 May 1890, Page 3

A DOMESTIC DRAMA.

‘ Phyllis ! Darling !’ There was a tremor in the full, rich, manly tones. He looked up with beseeching eyes, in which the faint suspicion of a tear glistened, ac the fair, perfect type of all that could be lovely in woman that stood before him, and as he looked long, earnestly, intensely, his voice broke into a trembling treble. Outside on tho brick-swathed pave could be heard the low, dull song of tho raindrops and the soft, PLAINTIVE GURGLE OF THE ORGAN-GRINDER, as he gyrated the crank for all there was in it, while tho merry invitation of tho man next door to ‘ h’avo anozer one ’fore we go home ’ broke upon his esrs with a startling distinctness thub made his tired head ache. * Phyllis S’ * What is it, Clarence ?’ said the beautiful girl, turning the rare and dazzling loveliness of her face towards his, bub there was no answering tremor in her voice. ‘Have you a pain ? Perhaps a porous plaster or a pill ’ ‘ Do you mock me still 1’ he cried, springing to his feet, while all the pent-up agony that had twisted his internal economy,

WITH A GAS-PLIEIt TWIST tortured his features into an awful look of despair. You know how madly, passionately, I love you. It is true you are rich and 1 ’ ‘Owe for jour last week’s board,’ came the cold, calm, matter-of-fact and businesslike reply. ‘True, alas! too true. Bub it will not always be thus. lam young ’ ‘ And green,' chipped in the maiden. Nob noticing the interruption, he continued— ‘ I will work, carve a name for myself, and paste it on each successive rung of the ladder of fame, until wealth and position are mine. For you I ’ ‘ Listen to me, Clarence Coughdropp ’ — and there was a COLD, STEELY GLITTER IN lIER EYE—‘I asked you a question last night—a simple every-day question that every school-boy and school-girl in the land could have answered with their eyes shut; you stared at me in blank amaze. You remember it, do you not?’ ‘ Yes,’ he faltered, ‘ I remember. It was whether I favoured the Druids or the Masons ?’ ‘ And you told me—told me without tho shadow of a jest, bub in dead earnest—that you had never heard or either of them, and did not know what they meant. Is it not so ?’ Clarence bowed his head. He could nob speak. ‘ And you EXPECT ME TO MARRY YOU,’ continued the now thoroughly-aroused woman. ‘ You ! A man who confesses himself actually ignorant of the existence of the Druids or Masons. You must think I’m a chump. ’ And they parted forever.