UNKNOWN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume 22, Issue 277, 22 May 1873, Page 7

UNKNOWN.

The house was one of the nest-like sort, low-roofed, thatched, with latticed windows buried in greenery, with a dove-cot on the gable, and rustic porch and verandah. It stood in a forest country, and, with its garden, orchard, and scraps of velvety pasturage, was surrounded on many sides by trees climbing on heights, trees dipping and curtseying in hollows, trees wading into the river where the red-sided cattle loved to drink, trees lying in soft heaps against the silver greys of cloudland with a mysterious blue mist behind their holes. . The morning glitter was on everything as the master of the house, going out with his dog, slopped and spoke over the low garden wall to his wife, | who, with bands in her apron pockets, was standing gazing attentively at her bee-hives. " Let Fan have the satin for this time, but she must try to do with le3S. Our living is too expensive." "I have just been thinking of where we can economise," replied the wife in an irritated tone. "We are too many in the house for one thing. It is time that girl Lola was earning her bread." "Hump!" said the husband; "I think she earns it already. She saves you a nursery governess." " I can teach the children myself," was the reply, " and their sisters must learn to help. Lola gets nothing from us but food and shelter. It would only be fair to let her go into the world." " She's a shy thing, and is better where she is. Besides, what would become of Granny's children ?" The husband and wife had walked slowly from the bee-hives to the house, and stood under a lattice window, which lay open. " Talking of Granny," said the husband, " How long is Grag going to stay at Eoselands ? He's a good deal here, isn't he ?" " He's very pleasant company." "And our girls are attractive." " Nonsense ! How little you know of your own children ! I have brought up my girls to have their feelings under prudent control. There is no mistike about his footing in this family." " Well, I'm glad your all so prudent, for he'd be the better of a gotd wife. He's a good fellow, and. a clever fellow, though poor as Job." The porch swallowed the mistress of the house, and the master of the house went off whistling ; and then a face leaied forward and looked out of the lattice window, pale, but with a sort of under glow, giving a warm charm to its dimpled softness, with darkness and depth about the eyes, and brightness about the hair which the sunshine now illuminated with a genius for love in every curve of it, and a sort of golden light wavering across the steady eyes and grave though happy mouth. " Thank God I am not a young lady !" murmured Lola, taking her fingers out of her ears, where she had plased them all too late. "What would they think if they knew what he (.aid to me yesterday." She rose up quivering at the recollection, nearly touching the slant roof with her head in her pride. The room was dark, and scarcely large enough to hold Lola and a glass of flowers and some woodcuts framed with plaited twigs on the dimlv-ligbted walls. " He'd be the better of a good wife," said Lola, echoing the words that had come to her through the ivy, " but he's poor as Job, and so the fine ladies leave him fco me. I wonder what it would be like, being a good wife to a man as poor as Job. There would be a good deal of scrubbing and rubbing, I dare say ; but lam ready for it if I'm wanted. Thank heaven, lam not delicate !" feeling her firm, pliant wrists with her clasping fingers. " I'd as soon cook the dinner as do worsted work any day. It's well I have no elegant tastes ; makiug common things look pretty is the finest I have. I have rather a good appetite" (ruefully), "but then I could live on bread ard milk. I can cook ; I can wash ; and I can make clothes. The smallest, -tiniest cottage, an easy-chair and a plain one; vine for him, milk for me; an evening lamp, bookcase, garden, good humor, plenty of flower's " Lola's thoughts wandered away, and lost themselves in the delights of the home she was sketching. She shook herself out of her dream with a low laugh of undoubting happiness. " Cbicfcs will be waiting — Granny will scold !" She adjusted her white calico dress, plucked a crimsou rose that was hanging over the sash, and fixed it, with artistic fingers, in her bosom, smoothed a wilful ripple out of her shining hair, took a f»un-bumed straw hat fro'p a peg on the wall, and went out of ihe small chamber, and out of the house. ' Granny's house was handsomer than that nest-like one in which Lola lived on suffeiance. Granny was not rich, but she! liked to keep a certain oldfashione<l grandeur. Indeed, none of these people in this forest country considered themselves as people who were certainly, poor. Granny must have trips to london, and two horses in her carriage, lind her son, who lived in the ! nest-house, would have been very well off only 4at Fan must have her satin dress and Ihe his hunters. Lola was the richest of them all, with her little lodging fop nothing under the ivy, and her si mder wage for teaching two email orpW cousins, whom Grauny

had taken to herself. Lola was the only one amongst them who knew bow to enjoy her life. Lola's way lay through a green lane, across fields, over the river on a rustic bridge, aud then plunged into a wood, through a blue tunnel hollowed among leaves, where the path was moist and brown with dew. Then she entered Boselands, which deserved its name, and went into the house with the perfume of thousands of roses hanging about her. Granny was a wilful old lady, who loved lilac ribbons in her cap, and old china in her cabinets, and who could scold and pet little people, and sometimes big people too. She was somewhat severe on grown-up young folks, unless they happened to get sick, when she became an angel. Arthur Gray was an invalid when she first made his acquaintance, and people said this was why she took such a fancy to him. He was a son of a distant connection of the family, dropped by chance into their lives — clever, poor, and with no friends. The ladies hearing that he was scientific, had at first stood a little in awe of him, with an idea that science is uncomfortable ; j but Gray had been presented to Granny by the most famous scientific man in London. We do not say that Granny would not have been kind to him if she had picked him up in the gutter, yet the great man had his weight when he did choose to step into the scale of the young man's chances of finding favor among his kinsfolk. Granny was sitting in her dainty antique drawing-room at the head of a table drawn up iv a cool corner under the shade of green blinds, her work-basket before her, her children on either side with open books, and Arthur Gray at the foot of the table, with pencil in hand. He was now no longer an invalid, and was supposed to be pluming his wings for some wonderful flight in the regions of scientific discovery. By the sidelong looks of awe which Granny was casting towards him over the rims of her spectacles, she evidently thought that he was at this moment deep in some abstruse calculation ; but he was only scribbling faces in his pocket-book. He had a broad, square brow, and troubled eyes, and a mouth which betrayed a character resolute and tender. He was a man who had a great future before him — of hard toil, heartache, and fame. Lola was late. Granny pointed to the timepiece, and the lessons began. Lola's voice was low in asking the questions, and the children's voices were shrill in giving the answera. Granny rapped with her knittingneedle on the table when things were not going soas to please her. Arthur Gray remained for the study, and his study was Lola's face. Lola's voice grew lower, and Granny's raps fell fast upon the board. Arthur Gray suddenly got up, and left the room. He walked out on a terrace, and paced up and down. Life was at this moment a tangled skeiu to him, He wanted to have for his own that sweet woman in-doors who was teaching the children, yet how was he to have her without blighting his career ? Marriage meant poverty, struggling, uncongenial drudgery, and Arthur had had enough of it from childhood up. Genius was stirring within him ; opportunity, at this moment, lay invitingly before him. He held in his hand a letter which invited him to join a scientific expedition to the other side of the world. A few months ago such an offer would have been hailed as the realization of his sweetest dreams. But now there was Lola. Success, power, fame, all to be swept away by a woman's hand. Only this morning, M he sat scribbling at the table, he had declared to himself that the thing was monstrous, that it could not be ; but Lola had walked into the room, and he had felt at once that it would be easier to walk hand in hand with her instantly into the valley of death, than to Bet out on any sunny path to fortune, leaving her behind. He was nowhere to be seen when Lola and the children came out of Granny's house, and ran off towards the woods. The children from the next bouse met them with dinner in their bags ; for this was to be an outdoor holiday, while the elders of both families dined with a neighboring magnate of the land. The children were wild with glee, Lola less wild than was usual on such occasions. The children tried to iight a fire to roast their chesnuts, but failed, and Lola lay in the grass, her hat tilted over her mouth and eyes, and listened to the happy humming of the insects. The children cheered suddenly, the breeze blew Lola's hat aside, and here was Arthur Gray coming to join them. This was like one of the old primeval days when the Garden of Eden bloomed, and before sorrow came into the world. Gray made a great fire, and screened it with thick boughs, so that the sun could not put it out. The children shrieked with delight, the chesnuts biased and spluttered, the thrushes sang, the quail away in the meadows below sent up a satisfied comment on the state of things, and the lilies flapped their golden wings wantonly down in the river. The purplo distance that girdled the forest world looked as inviting as the beautiful future which young eyes see in dreams. The sunshine reddened on the boles of the trees, and on two faces that leaned towards each other often across the heads of the children. Dinner was eaten on the grass, with dock leaves for dishes, and Arthur

Gray told stories to the children about wonderful places and things which are to be found on the moving globe ; showed them glittering caves in the earth, deserts with a fierce sun brooding over their blighted flats, and a flying camel carrying dark-faced men and women out of reach of a burning heath ; and, again, regions where the stars glitter big above mountains of ice, and the white bears wander from block to block of snow in the lonely seas. The children listened with bated breath. Had Mr. Gray seen these places? Should be ever see them now ? Tet that letter from the band of explorers burned unanswered against his heart. Twilight came, and the little forest party went home for schoolroom tea. As they walked through the tunnel of leaves the children ran on before us to have the kettle boiling, and Lola and Gray walked through the purple hollow, alone together. They did not speak much, but walked close together, hand in hand, slowly, and with full hearts. Arthur thought of nothing but that Lola's hand was in his ; Lola thought of nothing but that he had taken that hand, and it could help him. As they passed from the shade into the open space lighted by a last glaring reflection from the vanished sun, a gorgeous troop of moving clouds was sailing along the horizon, purple and crimson-edged, upon a sea of gold. They had taken a shape like the pleasure-galley of some ancient Eastern queen, and floated solemnly, as if to music not heard on earth. Something like this was suggested to IJola's mind as the lovers stood still to look, but Arthur saw only the expedition sailing away without him to shores unknown. For now he had made up his mind indeed. Let them go, said Arthur Gray ; he would have Lola for his wife. Next day, when the young governess went to Eoselands to give the lessons Arthur was already on his way to London to explain to bis exploring friends that he could not join their party. He would arrange some matters of business, and return to the forest country and ask Lola to be his wife. He thought he knew well what she would answer. There was only one woman in the world who would venture to share his poverty, but she was the only woman he wanted, for she was Lola. When the girl arrived at Granny's house she found the old lady walking up and down the path with a gold-headed stick and a largo parasol, and a face of such uuusual perturbation. " I have given the children a holiday, and they are making hay in the meadow," said Granny to Lola. " I am going to have a talk with you. I have got at last," she continued, " what I havo long been seeking for you, a situation in Paris, where you may see a little of the world, and improve yourself in French.. For a girl who has to earn her bread such improvements are desirable, and you cannot go on expensive trips, as your cousins can. I have a letter here from the gentleman who engages you. He will wait for you till to-morrow,-when you must join him." Lola's cheek had become white. She reflected for a few moments, and then raised her eyes gravely lo the old lady's face, saying, "I cannot go." " Now, Lola, listen to me. You are only a connection of this family. I have always treated you as if you were my grandchild, and if I could have done more for you I should have been glad, but I am too poor." " I should not have accepted more," said Lola. " Don't be pert, miss, with your should nots and cannots. I have some questions to ask of you. Arthur Gray has gona to London. Do you know what his business is ?" " No," said Lola. " Is it possible that he has asked you to marry him ?" " No." " But he has done just the same, and you expect that he will ask you when he comes back ?" " Yes," said Lola. " And you won't go away to earn your bread because you are waiting to be a mill-stone round a poor man's neck? You are resolved to wreck completely all the hopes he had cherished before he met you ?" A dreadful look had come into the young girl's eyes; she put her hand dizzily to her head. " You silly child, don't you see that he is a poor man ; no one could be poorer, except yourself. If he were an ordinary man this ought to deter you. for he would have to toil in a way you know little about to give you bread to eat. He is not a common man, but with a great career before him, that is, if you, a chit of a girl, do not step in to spoil it. He is too generous to tell you this, perhaps, but I have no scruple in hurting you when it ought to be done." "Tell me about his career," said Lola. " The great man who introduced me to him in London," continued Granny, " said to rai*, ' This will be a distin- 1 guished man in a few years hence, if he only regains his health and keeps himself free of encumbrances. 1 shall keep an eye on hie career and push him onward if I can.' Gray talked to me about it during our journey down here ; told me all his hopes while I was patting and taking care of him. I said, ' You must beware of a foolish

marriage.' 'The worst thing that could happen to me,' was his answer. ' I hope you have nothing dangerous down in your country ?' I remembered only my grand-daughters, and that they were a great deal too sensible to take any interest in him. I never thought of you at all, child ; yet here you are doing the mischief, being neither wise for your own interests, nor generous in looking to his. You have ruined him so completely that he is gone to refuse an offer which would have given him fame and fortune had you not been in the way." •' What is that offer ?" asked Lola. " An expedition is sailing next week to the North Pole, or somewhere thereabouts. What they are going to ,doI am not sure about ; but they are scientific men, and they have induced j Arthur Gray to be of their party. A few short weeks ago he would have looked upon any one who had prevented his accepting this as an enemy. Now he goes to London to refuse it, in order that he may pin himself to drudgery and obscurity for life ; that he may live in repining over what you have selfishly forced upon him, he being far too generous to disappoint you." Lola did not answer a word, but stood with her face turned away, looking into the forest ; then slowly turned away and began walking like a sleepwalker towards an opening in the trees. Granny looked after her angrily, too full of Arthur's wrongs to have any pity for the girl whom she counted his enemy. "An obstinate monkey," she said to herself, wrathfully, and muttered her way back to the house, while Lola spent two long hours alone in the forest. Only the trees, and the river, and the sighing grass saw her struggle; when she came back to Granny her face looked grey and old. "I will join the gentleman tonight," she said, "and go to Paris with him." Now that Granny was triumphant, a new feeling of pity came into her heart. But she knew she had done her duty, and that Lola was behaving well. She patted the girl on the shoulder, and sent her home to pack up her things, and made vague promises in her own mind that something good must certainly be done for Lola. When Gray came back from London, there was no Lola in the forest country, and Granny explained to him how prudently the girl bad acted. " You could not expect of her that she would not seize a good offer when it presented itself," she said. "Itis i very well for men when women are ' found with a little common sense. She will have advantages in Paris, and will make a good marriage. Lola is a wise girl, and as for you, you will get over it." " Certainly, " said Arthur, "he would not interfere with any woman's prospects." And then he also went alone into the forest, and complained that the world had never seen a faithful woman. The grass sighed again, and a smile curled the edges of the leaves of the trees, but not a thing hinted to him of Lola's sacrifice. That night he was again in London, and the next day he sailed with the expedition. As he looked over the ship's side, ambitious hopes rose in his heart, and subdued the pain that would have lingered still. The sea- foam gathered over the past of a few months. The sun of the old world set brilliantly upon what lay behind him ; a summer dream, blue mists, dancing trees, sunny idleness, children's voices, and a woman's face framed in the purple shadow among leaves.—" All the Year Round."

The annual reports of all the principal Australian insurance companies have for a long time referred to the heavy losses sustained by vessels trading between Great Britain and Australia ; and it is not surprising, therefore to find that the recent additions to the long list of lost and missing ships should have led to the conviction that an advance in the rates of premium were essential. The London offices have commenced an agitation with that object in view, our local underwriters have also had the matter under consideration, and a meeting convened by circular was accordingly held yesterday, at which the following resolutions were unanimously adopted :—"1.: — "1. That, in the opinion of this meeting, the rates of premium at present charged on risks between the ports of the United Kingdom and of Australia are inadequate. 2. That the marine insurance companies underwriting in Melbourne will cordially support any movement on the part of English underwriters towards the adoption of an increased scale of premium on such risks. 3. That copies of the foregoing resolutions be forthwith transmitted to Lloyd's and to the underwriting companies chiefly interested in Australian business." The Education Bill which has just passed the North German Parliament provides that every township of 100 inhabitants shall have a s "hool, to be provided for by the Government, with whom shall rest the appointment of teachers and the providing of apparatus and suitable premises. The selection of teachers shall be governed by education and collegiate training, and persons of all denominations shall be eligible, provided they .take oath not to inculcate their particular dogmas. The text-books will be the best known on each particular subject, and the highest development 'in each of the sciences shall be aimed at. The daily exercises are to be opened by the recitation of the Lord's Prayer. No clergyman of any denomination will be permitted to impart in school, instruction of a religious nature, and any tutor so doing will be summarily dismissed.