A Question of Funds.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8030, 17 January 1906, Page 4

A Question of Funds.

A Very Short Story* with a Very Long Moral, which is Dedicated to Those Wise Rulers who Lament the Falling Birthrate. She lifted hia highness hastily from his cradle, because out in the little hall she heard & familiar step. Hia highness chuckled and kioked and made vigorous attempts to aeize & handful ol her hair. Laughing fondly, she disengaged the small chubby fingers, and coveriug them with kisses, she bore their roguish owner in fttimnph to greet his father. He stood—this husband of hers—on tfee door mat, wiping his boots, and carefully drawing off a pair of fur-lined gloves—her present to him at Christmastime. He looked tired, for his work was hard and the hours long; bufe Jhere was a bright smile On his face as he stooped to kiss her, and hig hands weren't too"weary to clap for the benefit of his kicking, crowing offspring. He removed his top coat and hung it up, and then slipped his arm around his wife's waist, and together they entered the snug little sitting-room. K fire burned merrily in the grate, and a large, comfortable-looking tabby purred contentedly on the hearthrug. "You've had a trying day, dear?" sho aeked, sympathetically, as he sank with a sigh of relief into his own particular baskot chair, holding out his arms for the child as he did so. " Rather, little one," he answered; "but Tin going to forget all about it now—in fact, I have forgotten. She gave him the boy, and then settled herself happily on a stool at his feet. She i caught his hand and rubbed it against her j che^k—a cheek that was well nigh ns soft' : and cherubic as was that of his highness himself. Was ever living woman as happy, she wondered, and a mist of sheer grateful joy dimmed for an instant the lustre of her brown eyes. 11 I've had & tiring day, too," she declared merrily, as she smiled up at him. "First, his highness refused to sleep and cried for two whole hours when I attempted to be firm ; then your mother called and gave me an hour's lecture on the general management of infants; and then his highness woke up and wanted someone to play with him: and so I'd only just finished I heard you ri'lg/L a wonderful little woman it is!" tic said, fondly, and his strong, tired face began to reflect some of her merriment. " I often wonder if it was cruel for me to take you away from that big cheerful home of yours, and to bring all these new responsibilities on your small shoulders." She looked dreadfully-concerned at this. " Hugo, dear," she said earnestly, "never think that I wouldn't exchange you and his highness for all the freedom and unresponsibility in Christendom."

" You're sure you don't repent having become a poor man's wife—you, who wove brought up in the lap of luxury ? " he asl.ed wistfully, tilting her face that he might read its expression. "Sure? I'm certain—certain; and I'm not always going to be a poo; man's wife, either. When you've written your book, and all the world's rfcving about you—what then ?"

"Ah! what then?" lie echoed, smiling again, a trifle sadly this time. " Then I was right not to wait, Jessie. Sometimes I think if I had kept my own counsel for a few more years, and had not spoken to you till I was n a better position, it would have been braver—aud wiser." There were tears in her eyes—real (ears now. She bent toward him and tried lo encircle him and their child in one convincing embrace.

"Hugo, if you had waited, goodness knows what would have happened. You might have '•>und some one else—you—oh, Hugo, you •night have died ! And I should have been eft desolate. Fancy, me a nokcr old maid, wearing a shawl indoors and cherishing a bundle of faded latters tied up with lavender. Think, dear, what you've saved mc from ! " fler voice was tragic—she was absolutely iut of breath with this catalogue of possibilities.

They both laughed, and his highness crowed almost as if he appreciated the situation.

Then a long, musing silence settled down upon them. A yellow tongue of flame shot up brightly from the fire and illuminated the whole loom —every detail of it; then it died suddenly into darkness, and it seemed to Jessie's fancy .'.hat the lamp all at once burned strangely 'lim. A curious feeling of fear overpowered her—she clutched at her husband's hand, looking timidly round in the darkness; but the hand was cold-cold and hard ; strange, very stranfp. hut it felt more like wood than human floh and blood. She tried to start up, but her limbs seemed frozen and parais™i. A loud, bewildering buzzing sounded in hw ear?; yet above it all she still heard his highness cooing softly—or was it the purring of Ibe tabbv cat?

She stretched out her arms desperately as if to free herself from some terrible obstruction ; and then a cord in her brain seemed to strain and snap, and—sha opened her eyes.

• For a little while she sat vary still, clasping the massive carved ar.ms of her easy chitir, piecing things together, disentangling, and then suddenly with ft sharp cry of pain she understood.

And she—she was forty-nine &nd& spinster. For nlas! for her starved woman' 3 heart, alas! for her vanished hopes. Hugh had waited—it was a question of funds.

lurt story so muei that he runtj to paj £9OO for tlio pleasure of rcaditg it, Jet him." " Possibly you're right—at least until I have seen the man." The publisher hesitated and started to speak. / " If you want to find him, Mr. Jobson," he said at last, 11 the best way would be to have something printed about this in the papers." " Couldn't think of it," declared the author immediately. " It would look too cheap —advertising, you know.". . "That isn't the right-way to look at it. This story is true, and you shouldn't let false scruples stand in the way." " Well, you can do as you like about that matter," replied Jobson, leaving. If he had been followed he would hare been seen to go directly to a bank and deposit the £2OO, which his bank book showed balanced with a withdrawn! made ten days before. The story of the old f;enlleman and his appreciation of " The Mystery of the Keep " was pretty generally advertised in newspaper stories for the next few days. The eilfes of the " Mystery "■ took an immediate jump. As soon as'peoplo realised that aomt one knew all about the mystery which wm told 60 thrillingly, they wanted the book,