A TERRIBLE MISTAKE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10060, 3 June 1910, Page 2

A TERRIBLE MISTAKE

CHAPTER XX.—Continued. j ''lt is anywhere with you, Percy. My foolish fancies have vanished. I am now a woman, resolute and strong, I go wherever y u lead me." "Then we will stroll once more 1 through the gardens,'' he said delightedly. "Give me your hand, my queen. Ihus we will go hand in hand through life and then " "Don't! don't!" she cried. "Icannot bear to think that we must ever part. I have one special prayer, and that is that we may pass away together when we are very, very old. "Life will not be the same, ti,en," Percy said. "Old people whom I have known viewed the rolling seasons unmoved. Appreciation of the beautiful is dead, the senses are dulled, and love in scoffed at." "Not love such as ours!" she softly breathed. "It must outlive ti/us itself !" They wandered through the mazy paths amid the golden sunshine, and listentd to the music of the birds and tha whisperings tf the waving trees. They planned a hundred things, and the blue tides smiled upon diem, the gentle wind 1 bore away their softest sighs. "You will not be afraid i.ow if I buy you half a dozen pretty frocks?" he i asked mischievously. "You will no longer fear that we are drifting to the poorhuuse through my thoughtless extravagance! You need never wear shabby dresses again, mv darling. I am so proud of my wife's beauty that it will be a deilght to tne to see that it is suitably arrayed." "I am bewildered," the girl replied; "but I suppose in time that 1 shall get used to the luxuries you promise me." "Then there is the music which you now hate! How are we lo pass the long evenings i: I am not permitted to play the mandolin?" "Now you are teasing me, Percy! Please forget that foolish speech." She raised her sweet, flower-like face, and ne kissed the ripe, tempting lips, again and again. "Hark!" Hiidred suddenly exclaimed, her face flaming ciimson, "Someone is coming!" An old man, cap in hand, was standing a few paces away. He kept his eyes averted until Clifford spoke, and then he slowly advanced,' touching his forelock. "Aslcin' pardon, sir," he began in confusion; "but 1 be John Pitt." "Indeed!" Percy said. "I L have 1 not had the pleasure of meeting you before, Mr l J itt." "I was bred an' boin in Ellesmere, sir, an' the agent said he would speak to you about me. I've been gardener here for twenty, year, an' knows every tree an' plant in the place. They've been like children to me, air, an' I've nursed 'em through winter and summer as though they was made o' flesh and blood. There be fifteen hundred feet of glass to the hothouses, sir. Last season I took first prize at the show wi' the roses; an' the purple grapes will be marvels next spring. I put in the vines myself." "Then you wish to remain at the Woodlands, Pitt?" Percy asked, smiling. "I never thought o'|leaving, sir. I've been here twenty year. Here is | a letter from my last master. He I only rented tho place to come to in the summer. He were an earl, he were!" Percy started'slightly, and took the grimy paper that was held before him. It contained merely a few wordr, to the effect that John Pitt was a trustworthy and experienced man. The signature attached riveted Percy's attention, and his brain almost reeled. It was that cf Lord Powlett, an old friend of his father's a particular lriend, too, of Owen Daventry. Lord Powlett was notoriously poor, and a mischievous busybody at th.u best. "His lordship was kind to me, sir," continued John Pitt, "an' said as 1 how, if the new people here couldn't : take me on, he would find a job for me at his own place." "The recommendation has decided me," Clifford hastily said. "You may consider yourself engaged." The gardener thanked him, and turned away.

? EY Jr. [L. DACEE, I • Author of—The Doctor's Secret, A Case for tho Court, ? ftir John's Heiress, A Loveless Marriage, Trenholme's Trust, Etc.

"A valuable man," he remarked to Hiidred; "and well recommended. A new hand generally plays sad havoc among flowers and plants." She did not reply, and he wondered at her silence. Just then the driver of°the fly appeared round a bend in the drive, and Percy discovered that the hour which he and his bride had allowed themselves for the inspection of the Woodlands had lengthened into two. ■"ls everything to your satisfaction, little wife?" he tenderly asked. "Is there anything of which you disapprove 9 " She aid not reply at once, and he re peated the question; then her clear eyes were turned to his. "Only one thing, Percy,"' she calmly said. "What is it, darling?" he eagerly asked. "Why should you hesitate about it? You are the mistress of Woodland?, and your slightest wish is my law. Practically, all the arrangements are in your own hands. Her home should be a woman's chief deilght." "You will not be vexed with me, dear?" "Vexed with you!" he cried reproschfully. "J think that is impossible." "Then I will tell you the one thing that does not meet with my approval. I am sorry that you have engaged the old gardener!" she said with a sigh. He looked at her in sheer amazement. What extraordinary farcy had now taken possession of his wife? "John Pitt appears to be an excellent man," he remarked. "I cannot see why you fhould object to him. You heard what he said, dailing?" "Yes, ( heard all that he said, and you did not once appeal to me. John j Pitt is one of those old servants who i must have their own way in everything. He will be master in his own domain. His long service gives him that right." "Such servants are usually faithful and loyal, Hiidred," smiled Percy, "fc'urely you exaggerate the gardener's importance!" "But he will not agree with my grandfather." She gazed at him intently. "L confess that your grandfather never entered my thoughts," was his hasty reply. A frown chased the sunshine from his face. He was vexed, annoyed. "Before it is too late, will you call the gardener back, and tell him that you have reconsidered the matter?" she urged. "It can do him little harm because his late master has pronised him employment if he wants it." "I cannot, Hiidred," Percy said distressfully. "Do you wish me to appear ridiculous?'' "It is the first real favour that 1 have asked you, and you refuse to grant it!" "I cannot,", he repeated; "but I will make Pitt understand that he must heed* your grandfather's orders." He thought of' Lord Powlett and his merciless tongue if an inkling of the truth reached him. "If Pitt arrogates too much to himself he shall be dismissed." "I am anwsered, Percy," she returned gently a d sadly. The journey back to their hotel was accomplished almost in silence. TO BE CONTINUED