Selina's Love Story.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8219, 24 August 1906, Page 2

Selina's Love Story.

CHAPTER XX.—Continued

Why or wherefore this attraction had ooine it mattered little now; the one great, the one terrible fact to Michael remained, and tbat was tbat the child be had learned to love bp the sweetest, the purest, the best creature the world held was passing gradually into the power of a man whom, against all the faith and loyalty of hia most true and loyal nature, he felt to be unworthy. Mrs Silohostor construed hia silence iu her own fashion, and later on, when Nelia Foster arrived lor her short shay at the priory, she oonflded to Neiia all that she felt. t '1 have been longing for something to ohake Michael out of biß etupianess about Selina Durnstone, and I think this has done it at last!' she said, .triumphantly. Nelia Foster was ;■> plf>:'SHnt looking young woman, extremely quiet in manner, with a particularly onarming voice. She bad intended being a trained nurse; indeed, had gone through all the necesBbry preliminary coaohing, and had passed her eAaminations; bat her uncle, Thomas Fotser, had vetoed the proposed life of arduous work and saorifloe. He was a lonely man, so he said, and he needed some one to share his life and make his home pleasant, and Nelia was hia favorite niece. She had grown accustomed to bis ways because she had stayed with him so often, and she needed very little persuasion to abandon her professional career and settle down with • Dr. Foster as mis ress of his charming and oozy bouse. 'lf you want to keep you band in, I will give you some nursing to do now and then,' he sa'd, cheerfully. And Nelia was quite satisfied. She had occasionally, however, to stay a while with her mother, who lived for the most part abroad, and it was from one of these visits to Florence tbat she bad just returned. She was singular iu one respect, and that was that every body liked her. No Dne, not even Mrs Silcheater, could find fault with her. She was so gentle so amiable, so softly SDoken, a womanly creature. Yet, strange to say, this womanly areature had a curious effect on Michael Silohester. He liked ■ Nelia. It would have been quite impoasible to. have done otherwise; but her softness, her constant amiability, engendered, he hardly knew why, a sensation of irritation. Selina, too, liked Nelia Foster, but she, in her frank way, had put into words just the sensation Miohael felt. ( I wish Nelia would be cross sometimes,' she had said to him once. *1 can't help feeling tbat she is a little bit insincere. It is not natural, is it, that anyone should go on smiling, smiling, smiling ail the time? Why, if she baa toothache, or pricks herself, she never even looks cress.. She worries me!' Selina ha J confessed. 'I have a feeling 1 should like to shake her! When she sits there so calmly, and Bpeaks always so softly, she makes me feel an absolute fool. She is the sort of woman who might be described as having a nice way with idiots!' And then Selina bad turned on Michael, and had laughed. 'But 1 forgot you adore Nelia, and your mother thinks no one oan compare with her. So sorry, dear Michie. I won't do it again. What I wrnt to understand, though,' she had added, is why Dr. Foster, who is so honest and thorougb in all be does, does not get awfully worried with. Nelia. 1 frankly confess I could not live a month with her. 1 should want to bit or—just to see if she could cry or get angry, like other people do'. Nelia Fester may not have known of these feelings; certainly, if she did, it made no difference to her. She was always sweetness itself to Belina'when they met, and never would let Mrs Silohester say anything unkind about the girl. Now she listened quietly as Michael's mother told her the news from London, and dilated on it. 'lt ,may not be true,' Nelia said, in her gentle way. £ I am afraid Mrs Lockhart is a little inclined to gossip and exaggeration; and then she has never been kind to poor Sel' ina.' 'Poor Selina!' repeated Mrß Silohester, 'I duu't know where the •poor' oomes. 1 think itjought to be 'horrid Selina.' You are always too kind, Nelia. I am sure you must feel with me that everybody ia very much took kind to Selina Durnstone. I don't mind, saying that 1 am not a bit sorry for what has happened. She wanted taking down. Geoige Durnstone bas'gone marching through life with bis head in the air, and Selina has marched after him long enough. It's just as well that she should know now she is not the greatest person in the world, and just as well, 1 added Mrs Silohester, empahtically, 'that Michael should know sho is not the saint he thought she was. Now, Nelia, you're <*oing to help me, aren't you? I want you to be with Miohael as much a> you oan; it seems very funny that he should be so shaken and ill, just because he happened to have a fail; but there's no getting away from the faot tbat ho'a very seedy. Your unole says he wants rousk'g. I oognt to be sufficient for him, but, of course, I am not. That's where we poor mothers alwayn have to suffer.' Nelia listened to this with her usual smile on ner lips. '1 shall bo delighted to do anything I con, dear Mrs Silcheater,' she said; then the faintest touch of colour stole into her cheeks. 'But are you sure that Mr Silohester will care about having me,' There was a certain hurried note of diffidence in Nelia's voioe. 1

CHAPITER XII.

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands. Author of "An Inherited Feud," "Brave Barbara "A Splendid Heart," "Temptation of Mary Barr," "The Interloper," etc, % etc,

'My dear,' said Mrs Silohester, 'of coursp he will. Miohael likes you ao much. He qnce said you were the most soothing person he knew.' Neiia bit her lip, and changed the subject of conversation. When she was alone in her room she stood and looked at herself in the long mirror. She seemed to be appraising herself, as'it were. What she saw pleased herßelf; indeed, she was comely. Her figure had charming lines, her colouring was fresh, she had beautiful hair, worn m the most simple fashion. Even in the clearest daylight she never looked her age, which was, as a matter of faot, a year or two more than Michael Siiohester's. 'This is my chance,' she said to herself. 'I never thought it would come. It never would have come if she bad remained at the Gate House. But she is gone, and be will learn to forget her. He shall learn to forgot her,' Nelia said in a low whisper to berself. If Selina could have sect) I hen ebe would have been grarified, for she would have seen Nelia Foster for once without that sweet, calm smile which so exasperated her. She would have realized that what she had imagined was m reality the truth, and tbat there were depths in this quiet, unobtrusive woman which bad bever yet been sounded.

'HENCEFORWARD YOUR LIFE BELONGS TO ME!'

Lady Durnstone found life at the Gate House extraordinary dull; in fact, the whole atmosphere of the place seemed obanged. She had been pleased and contented when she bad first returned. The newness of her position, her title, the broad band of gold that shone on her hand, bad a charm about them. Theyliad travelled so much in those few days following the marriage that Dorothy had seemed to live in a busy dream. She had missed no one, and she certainly had wanted for nothing. The devotion of her husband had been very delightful, and she had willingly turned baak with him, when he desired to start their life together in the old house where Selina had.been so happy. But Dorothy was of a restless disposition; the blood of her father ran in her veins; she might have drifted on for some time longer had she lived in that oalm, peaceful groove which her mother bad been so anxious and careful to cultivate, if she had not been startled, as it were, into existence. But that sharp uprooting, the sw'it transference of the schoolgirl into the married woman, of the school child into the young oieaure to whom nothing was a mystery, was destined to have a vsry harmful effect on the this girl's life. The mother, who had already started on her long, solitary journey to that far off country where Heury Dunwortby lay buried, was the only one who realized what would be passing in the heart of the girl whom George Durnstone bad married so recklessly. Caroline Baraldine alone knew what disastrous impressions must have been made upon the blank page of Dorothy's innocent, young life. Certainly George Durnstone had not the very least idea of suoh things. He had married Dorothy as a simple, pur«-hearted, greatly wronged ohiid, and in his own simplicity, which was largely composed of arrogance, ho determined tbat she should always remain a child. So it was that when Dorothy began to sigh, to look dull, to have a general ueglected air, it was merely in bis eyes » "natural childish reaction after mncb excitement. Had be been a wise man, he would never 'have subjected Dorothy to the ordeal which her home coming signified. Back at the Gate House, with no novelty of scene, no deligbtful?hotel life, nothing amusing or excitingonly, the oalm, still atmosphere of the rambling old house, the solitude of the gardens and the companionship of her husband, who on his return home seemed to pass from .the lover iuto the gardener. (To bo Continued.)