The Romance of a Business Girl.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10712, 6 November 1912, Page 2

The Romance of a Business Girl.

CHAPTER XII. (Continued.)

OUF S&UAL.)

She glanced overhead at the whirl- s , ing pulleys and driving hands, which made a network under the entire :roo>. "Jim," die said, "what is that awful booming noise, over there bornewhere it', the next building"r" "Tlie fans. Come, and pou &inill sou | them. They revolve thousands of | times a minute, and supply the bla.st [ to the furnaces, the cupolas, and the l'ires of the oliver men. The oliver men make the nuts and bolts by hand. And thus from shop to shop to shop Jim conducted Serena, explaining | things as they wont. But he reserv- j ed until last of all the engine shop, I and tho four huge boilers whence all j the power was generated. Tho engines lay in .i solidly built brick house, side by side, like two throbbing leviathans. The steel piston rods glided back and forth relentless —insistent; the brasses gleamed, the governor's flew wide; tho steam snapped viciously. Two enormous iron wheels, one on the side of each engine, revolving in a pit many yards deep, plodded gayly through their work. "These are the flywheels the main driving wheels," said Jim. "They sup.ply the motive power to the entire works. If I touch one of the.se levers, a thousand people will be standing idle." It seemed wonderful to Seren ;i that Jim should bo able to control these vast works as easily as she could an ordinary sowing machine. Ho told hot- 1 of .1 new kind of dynamo which he had nearly completed to reduce tho cost of 1 electricity. ■ '• "Yoti aro so dreadfully'clever, Jim," Serena said breathlessly. "Why did < .you ever look at poor, insignificant 1 me?" i '< "Clever?" lie smiled indifferently. |< 'Well, I suppose that I do.occasionally j < hit upon something new, or people j wouldn't pay me for it. I shall do great things in the future, if you want i mo to." J "1? Oh, Jim, what do.you mean?" "It's just like this, Serena : You ' are the first and last to me how,, and ( .so potent is the spoil you have woven j. that you have the making or break- ; ing of my career." The words were still pounding in her brain when Jim's father joined | them. Ho was watching her, with a i grim smile on his face. "How do?" said he shortly. "I was out when you came;. What do you think of it all ? A bit bewildering, after your shop in London." "I wish I had never mentioned that • d'.mied shop," Jim thought. { "I've read about ironworks and { things," said Serena, "but no one gets a real knowledge of such things from books. Tho scenp's I have witnessed to-day are burned into my memory, Mr Curling." _ "Better call me dad, now, Serenor. j I don't like that 'mister' business from i you. Going to marry my Jim soon j ain't you. Well, of course. You wait till the wedding day!" He walked oft', with a portentious shako of the head. "You see, it's all righl with him," Jim whispered joyously. "No one can resist you, darling." Serena was pleased, too,, and her spirits rose proportionately. They left the works just before two o'clock, to get some lunch. The streets were crowded with the sons of. toil,, for this was their dinner hour. "It's about a mile to the nearest decent restaurant," Jim remarked. "Shall we have a cab?" "Not for me. I like to watch the laces of the people. I iiever saw anything like them before. , Tho New Yorkers and the Londoners do not differ so much as one would imagine—they are all hatchet faced, clean shaven, and stare in front of them as though desperate to accomplish some special purpose, but the men here are different." "Something uncomplimentary now," [ laughed Jim. "No —no! Tho reverse." So they .walked, and talked, until they reached Corporation Street, when Jim said, pausing in the doorway of a palatial building: "Here's t'lio place, Serena. The most comfortable restaurant I know of for ladies." From within floated dreamy music, and the perfume of flowers. There was a string band hidden away somewhere, and great vases of flowers wore on the tables and counters. The seats at the tables were luxuriously soft, and the electric fans tempered ; the warm air to a coolness that was delicious after the hot streets. During the lunch, and after it, tho lovers talked of the present and the future. To both, the letter of George

BY IF, L. DACRE Author of "A Fleet of Dreams, ' "Silar Bennington-a Money," "The Shado wof Shame," "A Phantom of the Past," Held in Bondage etc.

CHAPTER XIII

Fleming had been disquieting. There was more that ho wished to say, and, as for whore the marriage should be>' solemnised —that Jim was determined to leave to Serena absolutely. "I suppose he wants plenty of fuss and show," he said. "A chance foi your cousins to be bridesmaids, and ali that. I should have to get a chap to he first officer, and it would mean the bringing together of a lot of people. And yet, Mr Fleming does not strike me as being that sort of man, either. Maybe it's his girls." "Maybe it's the girls," repeated Serena; "but we had better wait until we have heard what uncle's got to say about it. Let us forget it for the present, Jim. Time enough when we get back to London."

CAPTAIN MAYHEW'S AMAZEMENT. It was on Friday morning when Serena and Jim returned to London, they arrived at.cEnston Railway Station about noon, .where they parted, Serena continuing the journey to Dul~. wich, and Jim to his hotel. He had suggested lunching &t RomaJio's, but they were hampered with luggage, and travellfhg'in a fast train always gave Serena a feeling of nausea. If the visit to Jim's people had not been a delightful success, it was by no means an absolute failure. At the last even Sarah had thawed, and spoken her good-bye almost kindly. Jim's father had said a lew final words, characteristic of the old man. "I think you are good stuff,-Seren-er, but don't take the boy from .us altogether. Remember thit his father and his mother and sister have a bit of . vested interest in him still. I don't like this going away from us; Why couldn't he settle down a t home? That's where your foreign blood comes in. I should have liked to know your father and mother, too, my girl. Show me the parents, and I'll tell .you what the children will be. I never buy >3' horse or a dog without a pedigree, and human beings are much the same. You seem to have just drifted from nowhere, but we've got to take you on trust now." Serena listened with a little stabbing pain in her heart, and her response wis almost toneless. For one instant her eyes flamed with resentment, but she stifled it. and said nothing more, though she felt that the implied doubt—the toleration so grudgingly given—would always rankle deep down in her heart. She found a grain of comfort in the belief that her father, if poor, hid been a gentleman. ! Her uncle was living proof of that. Of ! Iter mother she knew little, or nothing. but she had suspected that her father's marriige had been an unliapj py one, because the subject had been ' rigidly barred between them. Sr> Serena returned to her lodgings, with the feeling of one who h:'d escaped from a day of battle quite unscathed. And there was more skirmishing at hand. Her uncle was vaguely threatening something, but perhaps that was nothing more than his displeasure, and Jim was going to talkto him. She had no intention of being married from Mr Fleming's house ; but if her uncle chose to go to Birmingham (To be Continued.) v