HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3205, 3 June 1909, Page 2

HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

CHAPTER XVIII.-Continud. "I'd rather be let alone," Lois began to say; but she ended the sentence with an abrupt laugh. "To think of the likes of me having a maid to wait on me! I don't mind letting you do it for on:e, just to see how it feels to be a right-down real young lady; but, mind ye, I shall go back to granny in the morning.' "She must be an excellent woman, or'you would not give her up for the i sake of the luxuries of such a home as you would have here," observed Nurse May, as she placed a stool before the looking glass and gently constrained her charge to seat herself upon it. "She'? got a rough temper," and Lois sighed, aware that if her return to Mrs Wakely caused the good woman the loss of the promised hundred per annum it would be difficult to reconcile her to the disappointment. "You have beautiful hair, but it has been sadly neglected," she was told, her remark on Mrs Wakely being prudently ignored. "Beautiful, is it?" queried Lois, who, although she had reluctantly submitted herself to the dexterous j hands of her attendant, was not in-1 sensible'to the pleasure of having j the brushes softly drawn through and through her abundant tresses. "It wouldn't lay straight, nohow, and it isn't as pretty a colour as Hal , Dartford's." She saw in the glass at which she was gazing, the lips of Nurse May suddenly drawn tightly together, while a swift change contracted her features. A moment and it was gone, and her soft voice was asking: "And who is Hal Dartford? Your sweetheart? Has Mrs Wakely been so incautious as to permit- " \ She stopped, deterred, perhaps, from saying more by Lois' emotion. Nothing could have been lovlier than the carnation that mantled . on the face and neck of the young girl; nothing more furious than her tone and gestures as she started up, and drawing herself to her full height, indienantly retored: "What do you mean by asking me that? Do you think that lam one of those bold eirls what giggle aDd loiter at the field gate with every young chap they know, or walk hand in hand with him down the village and never a bit of shame in them! Sweetheart,* indeed! I should scorn myself if I took that notion in my head, just because Hal Dartford spsaks to me civilly when I come out of church, or meet him in the forest. As if such as he would ever think twice of the likes of me'" She finished with a laugh that had in it a suspicion of tears, and her bosom was heaving tumultously as she resumed her seat and averted her still crimson face from the eyes that watched her so keenly. "Is he a gentleman, this Hal Dartford?" Again Lois laughed; but now it was with a sense of humour. "Tf he were would he be living is he does and whre he does? Why, you might see him any day as hard at work as a labourer, for he stays with the old parson that's too feeble to be left alone. Hal drives him out, and leads him to church, and reads his papers, and answers his letters, and tends the garden—he's very fond of flowers, parson in the night school —and it was he who taught me what little I do know." "Then he is simply the parson's servant?" "Aye," said Lois: "that's all; but he's the only one—-and he was onl/ a bit of a boy then—that jumped in when Billy Jones had pushed me off the rock I was standing on and the tide was carrying me out to sea. It was Hal that kept me afloat till they could get a boat off and pick us up. I might have.said 'thank you' for it if I'd had a chance of bidding him good-bye. I could have managed it then, maybe I,have wanted to do it many and many a time, but my tongue, that wags too fast when I don't see him, sticks to the roof ot my mouth when I do.", "You can write to him," she was reminded. "If he is as good-hearted as you describe him he will be pleased to hear that the girl whose life he saved has found a good home and wealthy friends. But perhaps," added the nurse, who saw that her proposition was doubtfully received, "you think it would be hardly worth while, as you cannot make up your mind to stay with us?" Again Lois' speculative glai:ce roved, round the room. It was a great deal to give up for a sharptempered old woman, whose affection rarely manifested itself in any shape but chiding. ' "Or' perhaps," Nurse May went on, "you cannot write well enough to send such a leter as this young man would like to receive." j "Is it my fault if I can't?" was the irate retort. "When I would have gone to school granny was always wanting me at home. Ihere was seaweed to bring up from the shore, or fruit to pick and send to the market, or ferns to crig up for the ladies that visited at the big house. She couldn't see thv» Jse of so much learning; no more could I, then; and it was a deal pleasanter on the shore or in the forest that sitting in the school house, with the children grinning at me because they ouldmalcfi their letters And road

BY HENRIETTA B. RUTHVEN. Author of "His Second Love," " Corydon's Infatuation," " Daring Dora," " An Unlucky Legacy," Etc., Etc.

their lessons so much better than me!" "Carrying seaweed and digging ferns? That's boys' work." said the norse contemptuously. "Would Hal Dartford like to see his lass doing it?" "I never did let him see me at it," Lois asserted, with quickening breath. "And I wouldnt' go into the street in my ragged old gown, though granny was ready to swear at me for it!" "Perhaps she though you might have mended the rents. Well, you're going back to Hal Dartford tomorrow. It is hoped he will be grateful for such constancy." "I'm going back to granny," answered Lois sullenly. "Hal and me haven't been friends since I taunted him with having no eyes for any one but the smart daughter of the landlord of the Blue Boar. But I should have liked to bid him good-bye, all the same, for that," she added, with a sigh. "He'll not miss you much, I dare say," she was told, with provoking coolness. "A young man who is as sociating daily with a gentleman, and who has the good sense to admire a girl who dresses berself prettily, wouldn't care to spend many of his evenings at Mrs Wakely's." Lois clenched her hands, and her cheeks flamed with anger, but she did not speak; and Nurse May, as she deftly twisted and coiled her wavy locks, went on in the same uncompromising spirit. "It will ba rare sport far him and the landlord's pretty daughter if they hear that you, who might have raised yourself ?o far above the young woman, have preferred to go back and play the hoyden in the woods, and be laughed at for your ignorance and your rags by the village children." The 1 head she was manipulating was wrenched away, and with the mien of a tigress Lois confronted the quiet speaker. "I'll have no more of your help! You are too free with your tongue, mistress! What right have you to speak so saucily to your master's granddaughter? Go away, and do not come back tiil I send for you!" Nurse May smiled as she quitted the room. She had succeeded ia her scheme. She had roused tha spirit of the girl, and. she knew that now Lois would rather suffer martyrdom'here than return to the forest, to be laughed at for her folly by all her old acquaintances. It was Ambra who led to General Haydoh his newly found grandchild. When she tapped at the door of Lois' chamber she was immediately answered with an angry "You can go away! I told you I wouldn't eave any more to do with you!" "I is I—Ambra Neville; please admit me." | TO BE CONTINUED.] For Children's Hacking Coughs a night, Woods' Great Peppermint Cure l/fi and 2/6.