"OLD ROSE COTTAGE."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 69, 17 April 1909, Page 4

"OLD ROSE COTTAGE."

Through a gap in the laurel hedge ia Hick's Lane you can catch a glimpse of a riot of roses—which is Old Rose CoU tage. Old Rose Cottage was empty; had been empty for two or three years, and every day in my month's stay at Foxsfield I had longed to scramble up the bank and burst into flie gardens of Old Rose Cottage. There were tubes of madder-pink and carmine, and every hue of a rose in the paint-box on my back—the "Liberties," "the "Gloires," the "William Allen Richardson's," the revolutionary crimson of a rambler, the Biush of a "Dorothy Perkins," and I could catch a ghost of their splendor—if t would climb through the gap.

Why not? 1 argued lo myself—tho place is empty; I should do no harm. So, in a moment, 1 stood gazing down the path. Evidently a gardener at least visited the cottage, for there was not a weed to be M-en, and the clove carnations, almost overshadowed by the stately larkspur?, had their heavy, redolent heads bast-Lied to almost invisible green Itiefcs, 1' had not got to wander nor to trespass further, i set out my sketching stool and swung my knapsack from my back, [n a few I was at work.

, And then 1 suddenly stopped. At the window over the porch was n face.

Straightway 1 forgot t.h e roses. Sly brush remained poised above my block, uml 1 -tared -stared—upward. Cynic* will 1,-iugh when I say 1 saw tin' fai-c (if a rose. Her cheeks were n<■ J.11<• 11>s —purest white—with a blush of I lie rambler beside her. Her eyes were the blue of the sUy shining through beiween Hie twin blossoms of her flecks, while the starlet curve of her lips was n nctli'.ig bud beneath. ] laughed--foolishly, happily, and she ■was gone. I took my courage in both hands and deposited paint-box and block upon the path beside inc. Then 1 scrunched over the gravel io the porch. The bell tinkled and echoed through the cottage as I pulled it. All was silent within, and I began to fear that the face was a dream one—(he rose-face of longing. With the opening of the dour I was comforted. "Hid—do you want anvlhhig';" she asked. '1 came (o apologise," I answered Uvvii'tly. "I'm trespassing, you know—" "Yet" she asked with a smile. "I didn't know an voir." was here," 1 added. "I wanted In sketch—everything's so Iwiutiful—" 'Mrs. Taylor—the owner—in coming this afternoon," she told mc. "I'm getting the cottage ready—" "Couldn't von give me permission. Miss Taylor?" I queried eagerly; "you "I'm not -Miss Taylor." she answered. and'suddenly she lifted her apron. "You—you—," 1 stumbled over my words. , I "Yes, sir?" she asked intorrotrativcK There was fionHhin!; almost akin to disappointment in her eyes as she looked ivt me. | "It'B hardly my place, sir," she added, i "No," I muttered, "I'm—l'm sorry."

''But I'm sure Mrs. Taylor wouldn't object, sir," she went on. ''She's that fond of artists." She smiled at me and I shuddcreJ. "That fond," I repeated to myself. A servant! The snob in me was'rampaat as I drew out my cigarette case. "Then I'll take her permission for granted," I said, "if you're sure she won't mind."

"She'll be delighted, sir—may I fetch you a match?"

"Oh, thanks—" She turned to go, but I called lier. "No—no—please, don't trouble."

I felt ashamed of myself and ashamed of my feelings. 1 knew her eyes were on me as I walked back to my stool, but when I sat down and looked again at the cottage the door was shut. What a cad I was, I reflected. She was as beautiful as the roses I compared her with, and because— For an hour I thought, and then I went back to the porch, and again I knocked.

"Could you do me one great favor!" I asked. "When—when you were at the window, you completed the picture—if I might just sketch you in—would you mind!" "Why, no, sir," she said.

But when 1 got back to my stool I found I was too far away. So I picked it up and wandered nearer, till I sat by the old apple tree on the left of the path, with her window above me.

So as 1 sketched in the perfect oval of her face, we talked. Hetty was her name, I learned, and she was seventeen. Seventeen"! I (lung caution to the wind. I was my own master. What did the world matter! We would learn whatever she was ignorant of together —I was sure she knew purity and trutli and simplicity, and I suddenly realised the importance of these three virtues. I stared upward and registered a vow —if she would have inc. 1 would marrv her. Then at last I ran upstairs—to pose her was my pretext. She looked at me half in doubt, half in wonder, as I went to her side. Then—l confess it, I flirted. Is it flirtation to talk idly, foolishly, happily, to the girl you want to marry? I wondered at her swift understanding and the skill with which, she turned a phrase or altered the meaning of my words. Tt was late—too late to skeWi, when we were startled by a loud knocking at the door.

Hetty went down and presently she came back with a telegram. "Mrs. Taylor can't come to-day," she said; "she won't be here till to-morrow." Very soon after I left her.

Her face Was rose framed at the window #!ien I came again in the morning. Oncejnore I es=aye3 to sketch in the garderrponee more I was conquered and climbed the stairs to her side.

But tlir> night "had subtly changed us. I was so sure—convention, society were of such little account—l loved, ami if she would, I was hers—Hetty's—who—whatever she was, was the beautiful girl I loved. But she was reserved. She seemed troubled. I pressed her for an explanation, but she only shook her head. Then at last I went back to my painting. She looked so radiantly beautiful, leaning out amid the r oses, that I could not but tell her so.

"Don't," she cried sharply, her face flushing.

"But you are," I said, dropping my brush hack into the box. "Hetry, there are roses all round you, are theru not?" "W'hy, yes," she answered. "And a thousand otluy- (lowers beneath and beside you?" ''Yes,' she repeated. "They are beautiful, aren't they?" 1 persisted. "Oh, yes," said Hetty. "I 'began to paint them," I went on, "but I gave them tip because I found a flower far more beautiful and far more rare. You mustn't bo angry, dear; I'm. standing here telling you tlie truth. When I first saw you at your window I thought you must be a rose-nymph—" ' "Instead of a servant," sihe said bit-] terly, "that you make a fool of." j

"Hetty, look at me. Could Ido that?" "You'd fool me," she cried, "because I'm seventeen and—and because I should never have spoken to you." "Don't misjudge me," I said, angrily. "No, you shall hear me. I'm in earnest, deadly earnest. I want to teach you to be fond of me—do you believe me, Hetty? Oh! I know what you're thinking of ine!—but it's not true —"

Suddenly I stopped and followed the direction of her eyes.

Doubtless it was Mrs. Taylor's fly that had drawn up before the cottage. I glanced back at Hetty, but she had disappeared. As I reached the gate a lady got out of Hicks' rambling conveyance. "Why, it's Clare!" I cried, .hurrying towards her. "I didn't realise that you could be the Mrs. Taylor that we heard was coming! How arc you? lam glad to see you. Do eoine iu quickly. . . . 1 ... 1 want to speak to you . . . to explain. ..."

"Your easel explains," said Clare, my cousin. "See he puts the boxes in the right rooms," she added to an old ahigail who was laboriously climbing from the fly. "How mysterious you are, Philip, what is it you want? But I must. . . ."

"No—one word first," I begged, "I Want to explain." 1 knew explanations would be doubly hard if Hetty and I were to meet before her. So I told her as we wandered down the path. "I don't mind what people say—you or anyone else," I concluded. "I love her, and if she'll have me there's an end of it."

"My servant Hetty!" cried Clare, standing quite still and looking at me open-eyed. "My dear Philip, you're mad—"

"Please, don't say it again," I rejoined testily. "I love her, and it's no concern of anyone else." "But Hetty's got a husband somewhere knocking about the world. Iris is always chaffing her about him. Hetty!" she called, as the old woman stumbled up the path, "isn't Miss Iris always chaffing you about your husband?"

"Yes'in, that she is, to be sure. A good-for-nothing he was. Australy do hold 'im zuni zay." My jaw fell as I stared at her. What was this nonsense?

"But where can Iris be! My dear, I hope nothing's happened to her. 1 thought she'd be safe one night. I simply couldn't get down yesterday, and it seemed such a long way to drag her back. The child's got nerves of iron—but where is she?"

"Here!" came a gay voice from the window.

And there was the rose-nymph once more.

"U't ine introduce you—'' "No. thanks," I said curtly, "we know each other already. Iris, 1 have just asked Clare's consent to our engagement. Please come down, for I wan I to measure your linger —" She looked at me in amazement. "Oh. you can't play tricks like that with impunity," 1 said, "come down." "I won't!" she tried, half laughing.

"What nonsense are you—" began Clare, but I had disappeared upstairs.

"How dared you?" I demanded sternly. "You've tortured me and —and vou've made a foul of me—"

"You were only playing." she said stubbornly.

"Would 1 have asked mv cousin? Would 1 have told h'r I wanted to marry her maid Hetty—?" "Did you?" she cried, with a sudden peal of laughter. "I won't be cheated.'' I said doggedly. "Gh!" said Iris. "Yon shall marry inc." J muttered.

"Oh!" repeated Iris, but she retreated to ilie window-sill.

"I'll finish the sketch one day," 1 told her. standing close beside her. "Which—which one?"

"Of my wife." I said boldly. And thus it came to [inns.— By A. (i. Greenwood, in M.A.'P.