THE DOUBLE SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9616, 9 October 1909, Page 2

THE DOUBLE SECRET.

V BY DUNCAN McGKEGOR £ 1 1 b Author of "Kennedy's Foe," '-Ishinael Reforme (, § "A Game of Three/', "Edna's Peril." 3 / Etc, etc. /

CHAPTER V.—Continued. "Do give ma that bird, Mr Ponsonby; he will not keep still enough for a model. Cousin DugalJ, will you ring the bell so 1 can send him away It is all that wrttched poodle's fault, to spoil my drawing. Mind, Aunt Vilthorpe, I won't osvn him ■ any longer. You may take him backugly thing that he is." "lo think," said Mr 3 Vilthorpe reproachfully, "of a young lady refusing to keep a dear little pet to be fond of!" "To think," cried her niace, "of a woman lavishing fondness on a miserable little beast! If I must have something to kiss and coddle up, and deck with ribbons, ami stuif with daintks, it shall not be a meie puppy. I'd rather adopt the first beggar baby that I met. It would be a much nicer iashion for young ladies to take poor little orphans or foundlings to pet." "Oil, Lina to think of. taking for a pet some vulgar child! "No child is worse than a dog, aunt. One could destroy the vulgarity by good training." "But to think of adopting a child of the rabble—of the common held!" said Mrs Vilthorpe. "I find in myself quite an affinity for thH common herd-for the rabblement," cried Lina. "God n.ade them; and have they not the same eyes, ears, speech, emotions as other men have?" She threw herself back on the sofa and fairly glared at her antagonist aunt, her cheeks Hushed, her eyes scintillating, not now blue with mirth, nor like deep purple pansits with earriestuess, bur a glittering chrysolite, with lambent fires. Mrs Vilthorpe much offended, drew off, her forces, and retired to her own room, carrying the poodlei "Come," said Lina, "let us go and roll bowls. In my ideal world there are no rainy days, no dogs, no unmanageable aunts!" "Lina," said Lady Astvaea, "I am really surprised at jou.' "Honoured grandmama," replied the girl briskly, "I am truly bored to death with relationship?. Ho* lovely it would be if all,we humans were projected into life as independent, unrelated atoms drifting about until we found an affinity! It is sweh a nuisance to be told of ties of. blood ani dutits of relationship to pei pie that are your natural antipodes. Come, bowls, Lowls, bowls!" Away she fitw sweeping all in her-train but Pauline and Dugald Probyn. Was it the calm perfection of the face bent over th? little chintz frock which t auline was making that drew Dugald to the fide of Lady As traea? He had been regarding steadfastly this face, healthful and full of expression, but with scarcely a tinge of colour in it rising from the white ruffle that finished the neck of the black dress. If he changed his seat to be near Pauline, Dugald chose an unlucky subject of conversation for he said: "Lady Astraea, can you till me what has become of Mrs Ormesby's supposed daughter —Persis?" "No, I cannot," said Lady Aatraea. "I have felt so sorry for the shock to her, of her changed fortunes, and wished I might lighten it in some way." "She is harily a girl to demand sympathy," «aid her ladyship. "She wns a ternt'ls: little vixen, as I remember her."

Lady Asttaea felt inclined to laugh outright. Dugald was looking cuvertly at Pauline, and her face was clouded as if by uneasy thought. me, madam," she said it? a bw tone, rose, bowed cJdly to Dugald and withdrew. Now, just as" she left tha room, she met Lord Harcourt; his face was.darkened because Mrs Vilthorpe had just been pouring out complaints about his daughter. He brightened at J sight of "Pauline. "Ah!" he said, "come and play chess with me; let us sit here in the hall window; Jenkins, bring me a chess-boaid." Pauline dropped her handful of work on a chair, and turned to the window _with a smiling face. She liked chess, and she liked Lord Har court. Dugald Probyn saw the smile, and judged by the small light accorded him, just as we ar£ all apt t) judge our fellows and usually so unjustly. "She heard him coming and went out on purpose. Does a girl ever love really a man a quarter of a certury her senior?" The voices of Lady Astraea recalled his attention. "Persis Ormesby was one of the noblest girls I ever met. Strong, true, generous, she could rise superior to fate." "It must have been a terrible shock to her to losa her mother, her fortune, her position, at one blow." "The real shock was injosing her name, in finding herself a nameless one. I think she cared comparatively little for the money; indeed, preferred poverty to having with fortune the hereditary malady of Charlotte Ormesby's family. I think she preferred to owe Charlotte Ormesby the gratitude due a foster-mother rather than the love owed to an own mother. It 13 hard for a rightminded girl to sit in judgment on

her own mother, and 3 Charlotte Ormesby had many imperfections." "Well, it seems terrible to think of a tenderly reared girl left homeless and friendless—even nameless. Can she never find out her family and name?" E ."I hope ye°," said Lady Astraea. I "And can I not, through Allan Bird, say, make over to her a thousand, to relitve mv mind?" "I think not. Do not try," said her ladyship. J,The storm cleared away, and the October sunshine brought with it two elements of secret interest into Lady Lina's life. One evening the party at the Towers was discussing oddities in penmanship. "I think I have a curious specimen in a notebook," said Dugald Probyn, taking the note-book from his ctiat pocket and turning it over he took out from the leaves a card with a head done in India ink by a careful and skilful hand. Lady Lina caught it up. "Oh, who is this?" she cried enthu* siastically. Dugald looked.

"An artist friend of mind made that study trom a young Italian of our acquaintance, Gramtto Maria Arriano, the son of an advocate of Milan. He is studying at Pisa with a view to the priesthood; the family have influence. Our handsome friend may be a cardinal some day." "Handsome!"' cried Lady Lina, regarding the picture. "Why, he is peifectly gorgeous. I wonder why we cannot raise such looking men in this country," she continued with glorious disregard for the feelings of Vr grouped admirers. "Just look at those splendid black eves, and what a head, and the mouth half tender and half sardonic. Oh, what picture was he painted for?" "For a study for the times of the Gracchi," said Probyn. He laid on the table various specimens of script on cards or envelopes. After a while Lina gathered them up and handed them to him in a bunch, saying: "Here is your property; come and sing tenor for some of my pet ballads." i The next day Dugald announced the loss of his Italian friend's picture. "What a shame!" cried Lady Lina. "Why did you not give it to me? Let us interview the servants about it." And yet wifhin a week, if Dugald Pronyn had entered the altic studio of a certain skilled miniaturepainter in Hastings, he would have found him copying on an ivory ovi I this very picture of Gramtto Maria' Arriano, and the copy was made at the order of Lady Lir.a Harcuurt. Only a few days later, and before Dugald returned to Florence, Lady Lina was walking by hem if, one evening, in the beech-grove just betore sundown. A ray of light darting between the halt-bare buughs, lay in a broad bar of gold across the moss and dead leaves. Lina was bending, 'forward, stirring tha leaves with a light snitch which she had picked up in her wa!k, stirring them to cover a green-and-brown lizard which hadj there just vanished from her sight, j She heard a light footstep rustling; the leaves in the path, and hokingj up saw a tall woman of a beauli j ful figure; a bandanna handkercnitf wes tied around her head, being knotted under her chin; her skin was brown; a red cloak bung from her shoulders to her knees. I TO BE CONTINUED. 1