A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9161, 7 August 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

By FLORENCE WARDEN,

Author of " The Lady in Black," "An Infamous Fraud," "For Love of Jack," "A Terrible Family," "The House on the Marsh," etc. elc.

CHAPTER V.—Continued

Netelka, the most particular of housekeepers, was appalled. There was so much to do that it seemad impissible that anything should ever get done. Mr Moseley had, indeed, engaged a cosk, three maids, and a man servant, "on behalf," as he exp .eased it, "of his tenants;" but Netelka had unwisely not waited for their coming. The young wife was, in truth, so miserable as to be restless. She had consulted her aunt about this offer of the h)use and Linley's threat. Lidy Kenslow had listened with a stolid face, had offered no suggestion as to Moseley's reasons, but had emphatically advised Netelka to go with her husband. It is not only, my dear," she had said, "that I hold old-fashioned notions that a husband should cleave to his wife, and a wife to her husband. Leave the sentiment and the religous obligation out of the question, you will still find that in practise it works best, especially for the wife, for the couple to keep together." "Even if," suggested Netelka, with hesitation, "the husband's conduct should be such as —to seem very strange and —incomprehensible?" "Even if," replied Lady Kenslow tranquilly, "his conduct should, seem to his wife asolutely wrong." There was a long silence. Netelka wondered what her aunt knew or guessed concerning Linley. There had been absolute silence between the two ladies on the subject of the trial; and Lady Kenslow, who had vehemently opposed her niece's marriage, was now just as emphatic in her advice to Netelka to stand by her husband. "Aunt," she said presently, looking curiously at the face of the elder lady, who kept her eyes upon her work, I wish you'd speak out, and tell me what you think about—about 9 9 "About what, my dear?" murmured Lady Kenslow. Netelka moved her shoulders impatiently. "Well, about Linley, for one thing?" Why trouble your head, my dear, about opinions which you might not care to hear? Why not be satisfied with my advice, since you acknowledge in your heart that it is goo" 1 ? I say again, don't ask yourstlf whether what Linley does is right or wrong; you have chosen him to go through life with; and the world will thinlc better of you, and you will i think better of yourself, if you stick to him to the end. Now, don't bother me or yourself by askinc for any reasons, because I shan't say any more. Now, we'll have tea." And this was all the comfort, all the advice, which Netelka had been able to obtain from her usually sympathetic aunt. After the first few horrible days of confusion, and muddle, and cleaning up at "The Firs," Netelka began to see that there was something in Aunt Mary's advice. She had less time to brood over her troubles and her fears than she would have had in Lady Kenslow's tranquil little household, where she had no duties, and where, therefore, time had hung heavy on her hands. She began to interest herself in the progress the > servants made toward producing order and cleanliness out of chaos and dirt. In the meantime she saw little of Linley. Sometimes he would :ome down late in the day and spend the night at "The Firs," but more often he would telegraph to tell her that business detained him in town. When he did come, however, he was very kind and cheerful, and spoke hopefully of his prospects of getting "at least something out of the insurance companies;" and, lastly, she was thankiul to hear and to see nothi g whatever of Mr Harrington Moseley. I r Very early in her stay at "The | Firs" Netelca was called u.)on ly her nearest neighbour. This was u lady of between th'rt/ and forty | years of age, with a tall, slight fig- j ure and beautiful golden hair, rather girlish in her dress awl decidedly oldgirlish in her manner, a goodnatured, restless, foolish creature, for whom centuries would not have been enough for her to "grow up" in. Sie had light eyes, ever-parted lips, and a perpetual and meaningless smile on her pinlc features. She was "so delighted" to have Mrs Hilliard for a neighbour, "quite charmed at finding her at home, and "desperately annoyed" because her eldest daughter was too shy to come with her on this call. She implored Mrs Hillard to make any use of her she pleased, and offered to corno and help her in any way that she and ended by entreating Netelka to come in to tea.

"It's only next door, you know," she went on coaxing!/. "We live in that little cottage on the right, built expressly to show off the size aii'J the beauty of your big house. So you really can't say no, or it will look as if you were giving yoiuselJ! aira on thj strength of the difference!" Netelka did one afternoon avail herself of Mrs Collingharn's invitation. Shy felt very lonely, ard she \vnnt:d to see the pretty children whom alio had met out with their perambulator, and the big girls she had heard about. Mrs Collingharn's house was very svna'.l, very new, very red, and so much broken up by turrets, and gables, and massive chimneys, and fanciful windows of all shapes and dizes, that you were a little puzzled in looking at it, as to the architect's meaning. It had all the latest improvements—electric bells,which had Song; ceased to ring, since nobody ever thought of recharging the batteries; elaborate molded fireplaces,

painted with various colours, which didn't "go with" anything else in the rooms; and a charming heating apparatus for the bathroom (a new patent which exploded every winter with the utmost regularity). In spite of Mrs Collingham's entreaties that Mrs Milliard would "not stand upon ceremony," but come in just when she felt inclined to do so, Netelka could not but be conscious of a certain scurrying and bustling, of a certain excitement and general sense of something having happened, which always characterises the arrival of a visitor at a small house filled by a large family. Netelka wished that she had not taken Mrs Collingham at her word, but that she had waited for the "first and third Thursdays" inscribed on that lady's card, when she would have found the housemaid with a clean cap, the pail and sweepingbroom hidden away in the cupboard, the children locked in the nursery and the whole establishment wearing an air of state befitting the occasion. As is was, she could not help feeling that she was in the way when she heard them wake up Major Collingham from his nap and bundle him out of the drawing-room, while she was stepping over a baby in the hall. Mrs Collingham, however, was so unfeignedly glad to see her that Netelka soon recovered from the slight feeling of embarrassment occasioned by these untoward accidents, and the major, having re-entered the room after brushing his dyed hair carefully over the bald space on his head, they all chatted very pleasantly atiout nothing in particular until tea was brought in. Then, unluckily, another regrettable incident occurred. Major Collingham had just woke up sufficiently to begin telling one of his best stories, when the door of the back drawing-room was burst open, and a tall and remarkably pretty young girl dashed ungracefully in. She was in walk-ing-dress, and had evidently come in from a struggle with the wind, which had blown the pretty fair cheeks until they glowed like the centre of a pale-pink rose. "Oh, mamma, what do you think—- —" she began. But, suddenly perceiving a stranger, she stopped short, with a frightened look on her face, and then turned and disappeared with the celerity of a rabbit popping into its hole. Major Collingham jumped up an« . , . "Really, Marion, that girl is an absolute idiot! Why don't you teach her to behave like a civilised person? 1 shall go and fetch her back and make her apologise." His wife sprang up and stopped him as he was going toward the door, while Netelka begged him not to reprove his daughter on her account. "She is only shy; I was just the same myself when I was a girl, and can feel for her." But s-he has no business to be shy —it's ill-bred," said the major, not yet calm. As for you, Mrs Hillard, I am quite sure that you were never shy in the that girl is. I don't know what's come over her lately," he went on to his wife. She goes mooning about the place without a word to say for herself, starts when she is spoken to, and behaves like an untutored savage." My dear, don't be hard upon her," returned his wife, with some mysterious nods and looks, some directed to her husband, and some to the visitor. She will become all right in time, I've no doubt. You will know what started the mischief, and how resolutely I set my face against what you did at the time." (To be continued.)