THE STORYTELLER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 18 April 1907, Page 4

THE STORYTELLER.

A FAIR EXCHANGE. ! ".My dear Sybil, she's an extremely vulgar person, and what I believe is usually known as a climber, or a person who wants to 'get on,'" "ReallyV Sybil- Cranstone laughed. •It doesn't matter if she is. 1 shall merely be her little daughter's companion. I curt stay ai home and see that man till papa's place. On! how could mother do if;" and the "id's eves tilled with sudden tears.

J-idy Kvelina Moreton, her dearest friend and only confidante, looked pityingly at her.

"1 know." she said: '-but, Svbie, surf lv you won't he any bcUer oll'witii tha't little vulgarian—horrid little beast, 1 ran against her the other day, and she introduced herself—because she knew one of my cousins. | can't picture von dependent on such a woman: she'll lead you a terrible life—those vulgar people always do—unless—but there, it'-- no use anticipating, but 1 think you'll tind you're making a horrid mistake." •Tossibiy," said Syb 1, "hut in the meantime 1 shall get away from my stepfather, my present surroundings—and," she added gailv. "I shad be e-'irn-imr €l7O a .war."

"HV said Lady Kvelina, 'and I don't doubt but what you will earn every penny of it, if 1 know anything of Mrs Seamore-Smither-on."

Sybil Cranstone was on her way from the station, and the motor brougham had been Sent to meet her. She had the deepest misgivings as she remembered what Lady Evelina had said. and yet if Mrs Seamore-Smitherson was a vulgarian and a climber, at least she was apparently not going to be unkind to her, she thought, as the luxurious motor car glided past the iodge gates and up the avenue; but her heart sank as she stepped into the brilliantly-light-ed hall.

"How do you do, dear. Do you know I feel as though I knew you already. J met,your mother, you know, at a bazaar last year—you know that lovely show at the Albert Hall."

"Oli, yes," replied Sybil doubtfully.. She was not a frequenter of bazaars, but had some vague remembrance of having heard her moother allude to Mrs Seauiore Smitherson as a horrible little vulgarian to whom she had to he civil only on account of the fact that she had bought up haif an otherwise unsaleable stall. "And how is her kuyship!" asked her new employer gushingly. "Oh, mother's all right, thanks," replied Sybil. "It was very kind of you to send the motor. Is this my little pupil?" changing the subject a little abruptly.

A small fair-haired and rather selfishlooking girl came forward and gravely scrutinised her.

"Say 'how do you do,' Babsic." "How do you do," replied the child solemnly, and without for a moment removing her eyes. . "Shall we go to the schoolroom and make friends?" asked Sybil gently. "Oh, please don't!'' cried Mrs Seamore Smitherson; "we have no such horrid things as a schoolroom, have we, Babsie?" And as Babsie said, "No, not now, mummy, but we used to," she hurriedly interrupted: "And I've given you a sitting room olf your bedroom, Miss Cranstone, which Babs may go into if she's very, very good, and if you don't mind having her. .She has her own room out of her bedroom, where she keeps her toys and books and) things." "May I go up and see the toys anHbooks, then?" asked Sybil of the child, and Babs. after once more gravely scrutinising her new "governess," nodded gravely and said: "Yes, please, and' 111 show you my doil—and the new vacuum cleaner to clean my doll's house, and the kittens—and Fido —and everything."

"This is the strangest way I have ever heard of a governess being treat- 1 ed," thought Sybil to herself as she sat over a huge fire in her bedroom, brushing out her thick, waving hair, but she felt a deep sense of gratitude to tlv> "little vulgarian" all the same.

"Dearest Evelina," she wrote the next day to Lady Evelina, "this is really a most extraordinary 'situation.' I find myself an honored guest—instead of a put-up dependent, and nothing is too good for me in this veritable palace of a place. Mrs Seamore - Smitherson treats me with the greatest kindness and the child is a queer little old-fashi-oned darling—rather. I should, say, of the 'enfant terrible' type. It is quite an education to me, for I thought, judging, I suppose, of mamma, that people were always very rude to governesses"— and Lady Evelina replied with a letter full of airy nothings and a postscript full of meaning which said: "Dearest—how very, very dense you n re."

Sybil Cranstone was going to bo married to the young Duke of Reea ■ dale—the Duchess of Reesdaie, who had been a very old friend of her father's, had met her one day when she was up in town shopping with Mrs SeamoreSmitherson and had insisted on her coming for a week or ten days to Reesdaie, and there she had become engaged to the. man she always loved, but whom she had studiously avoided on account of a misunderstanding she had had with him.

However, the Dowager Duchess, who dearly loved her for her dead father's sake, had brought them together agai ami now they were to be married. But Sybil insisted on staying on with Bahs until another companion had been found, for she and the child were the greatest friends. To-ntght Babsie was sitting on a stool by the fire, rest'ng her pretty head against Sybil's lap. It was her governess' last evening In the house. "I wish you wasn't going away."

''Weren't, my darling," corrected Svbil. "Miunmy says 'wasn't'—least sometimes she does." Sybil wisely changed the subject. ''May we come and stay with you when you are married!"

"Of course, darling," Sybil said, half hesitatingly, for to tell the truth, she wondered what her lover and his mothsake, had brought them together again, garian" to stay at Reesdale.

" 'Cos Mummy says that's why she's been so nice to you,'' continued the innocent Babs. "1 heard her telling Popsie when he asked her wliy she made an awful fuss of you—l make an awful fuss of you 'cos I love you," added Babsie—- " Yos you're so pretty. Mummy said she knew yon would be a duchess or a princess or somefing very, very grand, lint she hoped you wouldn't be too ungrateful or stuck up to ask us to stay. Are you grand. Miss Cranstone?" "I hope not, darling, answered Sybil gravely as she recalled Lady Evelina's word: ''Dearest, you are very, very ■dense!"

The Duke sauntered into his wife's sitting-room, and standing with hiback to the fire in the position that seems so natural to the husband who wishes to improve the occasion, he cleaved his throat and began—"l say. Sybil, my darling!" '"Yes, Teddy?"

''l don't want to dictate to you, you know, darling, 'hut—er—you know, 1 really don't think I can have, that awful woman in the house—Mrs SoamoreSmitherson. By Jove! what a name!'' And he added plaintively. "She calls me -'dear Dook,' you know, and She's really most affectionate." The Duchess came and laid her hand on her husband's arm. "It's only for this once, Teddy dearest," she said: "do let me keep her over the Hunt Ball."

"Oil. I say. Sybil——" he protested. "Yon see, she only wants to say she's been." said the Duchess ealmly. "Only wants'to -say she's heeii."' lie eelioed. "Reen where? Here? Sybil nodded. "fiood heavens!" ejaculated the Dukv. "What a frightful snob the woman must, V!"

"She is." agree,! Sybil, "but she was so very kind to me when T was there. and " She smlied and blushed. "She did it because she hopchl T was pretty enough to marry well and ask her to stay, and so I feel bound." "fiood heavens!" repeated the Duke. "And yon countenance that form of Snobberv?"

"Xo—T hate it as a rule." said his wife; "hut, Teddy—you see She really made me very happy, and she'll think me stuck up and—after all, it's such a little thing." And the Duchess laughed suddenly, a sweet and ringing girlish laugh. "I say, Teddy, if you only knew what she lavished on me, and what my feelings of obligation are—do let her stay, and then I shall feel we are quits again.!"— Rosalie Neish in MAP.