Mary's Great Mistake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3019, 16 October 1908, Page 2

Mary's Great Mistake.

By EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS. / Author of Selina's Love Story "An Inherited Feud," "Brave Barbara," "A Splendid Heart," etc., etc.

CHAPTER lll.—Continued. "And how long may Mr Paul be going to stay this time?" the / faithful maid and friend had asked ' as she gathered up the letters. "Oh, he is coming back for good, I hope." Lady Emily declared, her comely face radiant with joy. "'Didn't I tell you so, Dawson? He says be is tired of wandering about and shall settle down at home now." Dawson grunted. She poked the fire vigorously, disturbing a couple of fox-terriers from their cozy place in front of the fender as she did so. "There's a new young woman come to stay at the houss," she said after a lengthy pause. ' "Ah! that must be this Miss Marston about whom Lady Hungerford was speaking so warmly the other day," Lady Emily rejoined. "She always does speato warmly of them at the beginning," Dawson observed with a grim smile. Then she added feeligly, "Poor Mr Paul, he is in for a bad time." "Oh Paul knows all about Miss Marston. He told me in his last letter but one that his aunt had written to him saying what a very charming girl she was," and Lady Emily laughed softly. She,was arranging herself in her chair, but her ears were alert for the first sound of the~wheels outside. "I she said, and she laughed again, Paul will flirt just a little with Miss Marston; it will put his aunt in a good temper." "Him!" Dawson said shrewdly, "Mr Paul isn't exactly a flirting young man, and a good job, too. He's a deal too handsome to go about making foolish girls unhappy when he means nothing by it." "Well, he will mean something one of these days, Datfson." Lady Emily gazed into the fire with her pretty gray eyes, thoughtfully. ?'I should like to know and love Paul's wife before I " "Here they are!" Dawson interrupted her unceremoniously; and forthwith she bustled from the room, followed by the two terriers, who rent the air with their shrill barks and screams of delight at the return of their beloved mistress, having been forbidden to attend on her to the station, and who scampered through the hall in hot haste to hurl their small white-coated bodies upon and about her in the exuberance of their joy. Paul came in for, some remem* brance also, and then having greeted these two and several other specimens of the canine race that cropped up from unexpected corners, Paul entered the hall and immediately began to embrace Dawson with an energy that left her breathless. "Bless me, Mr Paul, you're always the same, never a bit more respectful," was her remark when she could speak, but her voice and face Jiad an unexpected tender touch. Paul laughed. "Say much more, Dawson, and I'll -carry you up stairs, bag and Baggage, sand where will your dignity be then, I shouid like to know?" Dawson would have made some retort in her usual fashion, but the words on her lips were arrested as she gaz£d at the young man's handsome face. It was strangely thin, arid had a worn, haggard look, as though he had been through some great illness of trouble. "What is it?" the good, faithful soul conjectured as she bus ed herselt giving, orders about the luggage, while Paul hastened to find his mother and receive her welcome. "What is it? He's changed. He . looks as if he had had a blow of some sort, poor lamb. "Well, thank Heaven, he's come home. It's the best place for him, and he'll get better of his trouble here sooner than anywhere else, that's very sure!" Paul felt a pang of remorse as he stood with his mother pressed to his heart and felt her hot tears of delight on his cheek. He had neglected this gentle, gracious woman of late. He could not deny the neglect, and even in the modest of his pain and ceaseless anxiety he could not find a good excise for sqch ne- , gleet my dear, dear boy!" the mother said softly and tenderly. She was so glad to see him. She realised in this moment how much she had wanted him all the past months. Paul was very sweet to her, and ' they sat talking for a long while by the fireside while they had tea served, and Laurie crouched picturesquely on the White hearth-rug with her does and gave the news of the big house in her own quaint fashion. "Aunt Anne is serious this time Paul," she -jeclarcd, looking up with her pretfy, smiling face; ''she has fallen a desperate victim to her latest crazy. 1 must confess it is a very charming craze to look at; delicately coloured and delicately framed, like a Dresdep shepherdness. A very decided contract to your beta noire, the Blackbourne girl. It is to be hoped you take kindly to Miss JVarston." Paul laughed, but only in a fainthearted way, and Laurie, though she chatted on gaily enough, felt that her trouble and discomfort was in nov/ise lessened by her brother's return. It hurt her to see him so worn and weary and unlike bis former cheery self. She loved Paul so dearly. She felt a sense of hot .inger rise up in her heart against this unknown woman, wt,i> had had the power , to work so rapid, and complete a change. ne is making him suffer; perhaps, she is glad to see how influential.sh'e is. Probably she is proud to have stach a man at her feet, to v amuse herself with his feelings. Xet surety it would be hard for any one not to love Paul. I wish I knew more. His face makes my

heart ache, there is such a despairing, hopeless look in it. Oh! I hope it is not very wicked, but I wish this woman may taste bitterly of the suffering she is giving him!" Laurie Hungerford little guessed, as she harbored this hot thought in her heart, how innocent of ail knowledge of his pain, of his anguish, was ''.lie poor, desolate creature who was yet the i"ea! cause of it. * If she could have known, if some of the sorrow that burdened Mary Ballastcn's breast, and shadowed her young life, could have been laid before Paul's sister, how different would have been her reflections. Rut Laurie did not know, and it was natural that her great love should prompt her to be unjust to one whom she felt now, for good or ill, was bound up in her brother's heart and woven into each hour of his daily life.

CHAPTER IV. AN ALARMING TELEGRAM. Hungerford Park, to give the big house of Birchdale its real title, was an imposing, if slightly gloomy, abode. There was little beauty in the architecture, which was a compilation of various buildings, as it were, put together in a piecemeal sort of fashion, looking just what it was, in fact, the result of several additions made at various times during the previous fifty to sixty years. There was one very old bit in the middle of the building, but it was hard to distinguish it particularly from the rest, for a most luxuriant growth of ivy had spread itself like a green garment over the greater portion of the house, blending new and old together. The park and trees and land were all very fine. There was a beautiful avenue of chestnuts,' which, when they were in bloom, attracted lots of visitors from all parts of the country. Sir Rupert was liberal to his tenants and others, in throwing open the park frequently for their delectation, and, on the whole, he was a ' popular landlord, though what one might call an interesting man in himself. Lady Hungerford was not popular; she was too sharp, too curious, too much given tu mixing herself up in everybody's business and ordering the arrangement of other people's lives in the most superbly autocratic manner; moveover, she was a snob. She had not been exactly her husband's equal, and she had never recovered from the overpowering dignity of her title and her position. She imagined she reigned at the big house like a queen, but despite the fact that she held considerable sway, she had always one very bitter pill to swallow in the fact of her sister-in-tew, Lady Emily Hungerford's close presence. Paul's father had been the rector of the parish of Birchdale, and one or two other small neighbouring places: he had been a delicate, gentle, loveable creature, and Lady Emily had adored him. The whole county mourned for his death; there had always been an undefined wish that he might have outlived his brother Rupert, and come to the title, since Lady Hungerford had no children. (To be continued.)