A GIRL TO LOVE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9085, 9 May 1908, Page 2

A GIRL TO LOVE.

CHAPTEK XVl.—Continued.

"Thank you." There was* a hulfsneer in Owen's voice. "I will go now. ] won't ask you to walk witn me to the railway station, as I n.ust make a rush for it. Good morning." "Good morning, Harry." ****** Vhtor had a long talk with Mrs Craig that evening. Her claught r's engagem.nt to him was not displeasing, but the idea of marriage on such thn-t notice was indeed startling. "Isla's father and I were lovers for years before we .'married," she said reminiacently, and with a teartul sigh. "That was long ago," Victor pleaded, "and these are moving times. .Besides, the circumstances are different. You each had \oir own comfortable home—possibly parents, and brothers, and sisters. I have none of these, and I want to have the right to protect you both." Mrs Craig looked at Isla's blushing face in a wistful way, and there was a little agitation in her manner, too. "If you are both satisfied," she hazarded.

"I have thought it all out," Victor went on eagerly. "We can leave here immediately after the wedding, and live at some nice little seaside place until the winter." ",But won't that be expensive?"

"Remember that we are all three workers, and I have saved a little. We can get a furnished house on the coast for a trifle."

"A very small one will be three or four guineas a week during the summer," Mrs Craig said doubtfully. "It wodld be cheaper to rent a cottage and furnish it." "You and Isla shall have carte blanche in the matte," Victor sa\d joyously. "I must plead ulter ignorance in the ways of furnishing. I should just go to a furniture dealer, and tell him to rill the house tastefully."

Mrs Craig laughed, in spite of herself.

"I am rifraid that you haven't any idea of the value of money, Victor. We must take care of you."

"That is my argument, exactly. We will take care ot each other." A ■sadden tenderness Hilled his eyes. "And, now that everything is settled, everything but namii.g the day of our wedding, I have a present for my darling." He dexterously slipped the engage-ment-ring upon her finger, and at the same moment pressed a loving.kiss upon her willing lips. "For life and after, sweetheart," he whispered rapturously. 'From this hour we are one in the sight of Heaven." Oh, Victor!" she sighed happily.

CHAPTER XVII

COMING DOWN TO EARTH. » There was a great deal of practical work,, besides love-making, crowded into the next two weeks. A quiet wedding, by special license, was fixed fcr the end of June. It was deemed advisable to keep the affair secret, because of the very euriou3 conduct of Tom Kennedy. He had been discharged from the factory,and, under the influence of drink, his grievances multiplied. "It's all your fault," he told Pelham. "From the moment you came

here, you've been my evil genius, as:d _ it'lj bu healthier for you if you quit Soho. You've turned Miss Craig's ■silly hfcad with your fine ways. She

liked me well enough before, and I intended to reform. Now you've got old Nuttall to give me the sack. Take a week's notice from me to leave Kennedy's boarding-house. You understand? I'll.make it all right with my sister. And if you don't ero, 111 Chuck you out." He'lurehed against the wall, and with an oath drew a pistol from his hip pocket. "You smile in your sneering, sarcastic way, do you? Now I'll give you another order. Don't you go making a fool of Miss Criag any more; don't you speak to her again, or this thing'll go off and hit somebody!" "You ought to he put under restraint, Kennedy. Why surrender your manhood " "Oh, shut up! You make me sick! That silvery tougue of yours would wile a bird from a tree. Go to the police and complain; then I'll have a chance to expose you, and find out who and what you really are. /It's my belief that you're a ticket-o!-leave man." Vicor turned away, disgusted and annoyed, Kennedy's' vulgar abuse he treated with contempt, buc the' possibility of a newspaper scandal w: s alarming. The fellow would poso dramatically as the jilted lover of a pretty organist. 'ihe papers would seize Upon it with avidity, am' there would be monstrous caricatures called "portraits" t.) edify the public.

Under a swift impulse, he swung round upon the glowering and malicious Kennedy, and growled in his face: "I shall have to thras'i you yet, and when I do Pah," He had gripped the man's shoulder, and was shakirg him as a terrier cbes a rat; then he let go, and Kennedy sprawled on the tavemcut. "I ought to have told Isla the • wholj truti," Victor angrily muttered to hi ns if. "I wa3 afraid that the engagement would be a long one, Mrs Craig is so foolishly proud. Even now she regards the haste with a cretain degree of disfavour and suspicion. Still," he concluded, with a grim smile, "it may be the whole truth! If the money is lost in ihe new mines, I snail have practically nothing t-jft." I

He heard a swijft step behind, and

By BERTHA M. CLAY. Author of " Thrown on the World," " Her Mother's Sin," Beyond Fardem," " Tha Lost Lady of Haddon," " Dora Thorne," " An Ideal Love," etc.

then John Rutherford was walking beside hi in.

"I witnessed the trouble from my window," he said, "but ii' you follow my udvke you will keep your hands oft" the brute. His vindictiveness has oeen appalling lately. You are out early?" " Yea. Mrs Craig is whisking me away to the toast to-day, to a place called Seahulme. She has discovered an ideal c itugi;, in an ideal situation, and desires the hall-mark of our approval—lsla's and mine." i "I know Seaholme, and I love it," John Rutherford said longingly. "It was my boyhood's home. I once dreamed of a curacy there, but it was not to be. My work lies here." He came to a halt at the corner of a side street. "You will tell me about it to-night, Grant —I can't think of you as Mr Pelham yet," he smiled. "Yes; I have no doubt that I shall take the cottage, and furnish it. I haven't a very great deal of interest in the matter myself." He nodded and went on his way, and Rutherford looked after him, his eyes wide with astonishment. "No interest in his future home!" he thought. Victor continued his walk to the railway station at a swinging pace. He heard the steam-whistles blowing the hour of eight, and 'the train was due to lea'v° at a quarter past. With just three minutes to spare, he spurted into the ticket-office, very red and very hot. One gknee along the platform revealed Isla pacing gently about, her white dress fluttering in the morning breeze, and her mother was. sitting on a bench, anxiously watching the doorway. Victor bought three first-class return tickets, and a mintue later was giving Isla a tender kiss, despite the glances of half a dozen people, who were also waiting for the train. "I met Rutherford,' 'he explained, "and we talked five minutes too long. Were jou getting anxious, sweetheart?" "No; I knew you would come' in at the death 1 ," the girl laughed, "but mama was terribly fidgety. We have been here since half-past seven." "I always like to be in good time," Mrs Craig said. "Had we missed the train, W3 should have had to wait nearly two hours for the next one." Jsla smiled happily into her lover's oye3. It was a glorious morning, and all things were full of joy and love. Even in the heart of the smoke and labour, the sk'y was faintly blue, and the wir.d soft and playful. The train came bustling in, the porters cried something in an unintelligible lingo, and then, amid the crashing of doors, and a defiant scream from the engine, the iron leviathan again clanked on its way. "Oh, for a breath of the sea," Victor said joyously. "And a glimpse of the everlasting blue! Four days more, Isla, jand we shall be travelling this same way—man and wife. Our brief but happy courtship will then be a dream!" He turned to Mrs Craig. 'SNow, mama, hadn't we better talk business? I don't like the worry of figures, but, unfortunately, one has to face them sometimes."

Mrs Craig regarded him with despairing severity; albeit she was gratified at the opportunity of bringin r him to cold facts. Hicherto, he had been a hopeless enigma to her. He had never hinted at the amount of his income, and appeared to be reckless in the spending of money. Why, then, should he dress so shabbily, and live in cheap lodgings? (To be continued.)