WHY SHE WOULDN'T HAVE HIM.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 166, 13 April 1871, Page 7

WHY SHE WOULDN'T HAVE HIM.

"So your engagement with Mr. Shoddy is broken off?" said Mrs Maeteith to her young friend, Kate Quillies. " What a misfortune !" "A misfortune!" exclaimed Kate; " I look upon it as a happy escape !" " A happy escape ! My dear, you astonish me ! I expected to find you broken hearted, bewailing the cruel fate which had deprived you of one whom you had learned to love, and dashed your fondest hopes to the ground ; instead of which you appear to "

"Hush, my dear Mrs. Maeteith," interrupted Kate ; " say no more about it. I will lay the case before you, as Mr. Shoddy would say, and leave you to judge whether or not I was justified in refusing the band of this colossal lawyer. On my first acquaintance with him, I was disposed to favour his advances, thinking him a really amiable and accomplished gentleman, and a rather desirable match for a young lady in my circumstances. A more intimate acquaintance, however, gave me a better insight into his character. As trait after trait developed itself, the conviction gradually dawned upon me that he possessed all the qualities necessary for making a wife wretched all her days. Why, my dear madam, you have only to combine the irascibility of old age with the idiosyncrasy of a suckling, and you have this amiable being's disposition to the very letter." "lam afraid, Kate, you are a little too severe on poor Mr. Shoddy," said Mrs. Maeteith.

"And that is not all," continued Kate, unheeding the interruption ; "tbe creature actually had the pre-. sumption to purchase that verandah cottage on the hill side, and make preparations for our marriage without even asking my consent to be his wife, never dreaming, I suppose, that I should dare to oppose the will of so great a man. However, he soon found, to his chagrin, that all did not

end as he had anticipated. I was so disgusted with the superciliousness of the conceited creature that I desired him never to address another word to me ; and as I intend to leave the district, it is not likely that I shall be annoyed by this pest again. I never absolutely promised to become his wife, and there is not the slightest probability now that I ever shall. When I marry, I shall wed a man, and not an inane apology."

A few days after the conversation narrated above, tbe tall figure of a man, whose face bore the impress of settled melancholy, was seen slowly wending its way in the direction of Kate's residence. On arriving at the house, poor Shoddy (for it was he) trembled violently, and seemed to hesitate whether to proceed further or beat a precipitate retreat. At length he summoned sufficient coui*age to give a timid rap with the knocker. The servant who opened the door, although she had seen Shoddy scores of limes, at first did not recognise him, so great was the change that excessive gi'ief and disappointment bad wrought upon him — it was by his voice that she discovered who he was.

"Is Miss Quillies at home?" enquired Shoddy, tremulously. " No, sir," replied the girl; " she left here three days ago, and nobody knows where she be goue to."

" Grone !" shrieked poor Shoddy, throwing his arms wildly above his bead. " Grone ! did you say gone ? Ha! ha! ha! laughed he franticly. "Gone!— ha! ha! ha!" and he fell on the doorstep in a swoon.

Time passed on, but Shoddy's nervous system never wholly recovered the shock it sustained on his discovering that Kate was lost to him for ever. His face became wan and careworn, and his whole appearance denoted premature decay. He subsequently learned that Kate was residing in a distant part of the couutry, and he addressed several letters to her, imploring her to reconsider what he termed her cruel decision ; but Kate remained implacable ; Shoddy remained a bachelor, and the verandah cottage on the hill side remained tenantless from that day to this.