Lady Marjorie's Love

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 3 May 1913, Page 2

Lady Marjorie's Love

(OUR SERiAL

By Carl Swerdna Author of "To the Uttermoit Farth-ing," "A Mere Ceremony,'-' "A Fight for Honour," Eto*

CHAPTER XXXl.—Continued

would oome, I should dearly love to have —" Sho laughingly put her arms round the old gentleman's neck. "Stoop down; I'll whisper!" 'She whispered. Mr Chadbum, raising his face, was beaming more radiantly than ever. "She's really a little witch, this girl is, Jim—sho. lias kissed the blarney stono at some time or another-. Sho says'the very thing of all others that I wanted to hear her say. Let you havo Norah. my dear? Whv, of course you shall! If things go right, Norah will be down here to-morrow!" CHAPTER. XXXII. It was late the following afternoon when Norah—now recognised as the ,Hon. Mrs Loftus Bligh—arrived at Castle Marling. ''Hie day was warm —more like June than October —and the sash of Lady Mariorie's favourite room wa« thrown open to admit the air. She half knelt and half sat on a cushion at Norah's feet as the latter sat on the window seat. The .rays of the sun, streaming in, were making a glowing coronal of her chestnutgold hair, and Marjorie. looking up into her face a,s she knelt, was struck by its .beauty. But there were traces of tears upon it, for the gray eyes were wet a.ml the lips were tremulous. Marjorie bent her head suddenly and caressingly kissed the white hand she held. She had: never been in the least in love with I/oftus —the mere idea was unutterably absurd —I>ut she had fallen head over ears in love with Loftus' wife. "Don't cry again, Norah!" she said eoaxingly. "I want us all to have a jolly time together presently —just think —our first evening all together without what Gerard calls 'the brace of countesses' —why. it will be splendid ! You would sa vso if you knew more about them. Fenella alone is bad enough, hut the dowager—oh! And you know there really isn't any reason why you should cry, dear—not now. Of course Mr Chadbum wmild forgive you—he would forgive almost any one, I think —and I Icnow how he loves you—almost as much as he does Gerard." (To be Continued.)

"It's ii shame!" Marjorio exclaim-: ed. "Of course you have been laugh- j iiig up your si cove at me ever since! | And the idea of your telling over j and over again -that you were a. per- , feet donkey! - ' j "With all duo respect,'' answered j Gerard, "J .humbly submit that I never did tell you so." "J should like to know how I pot the nation, then? It's exactly like being engaged to two men at once, I d'elcare it is! f wonder you didn't steal! your friend's other name, too, while you were about it." "And have you think of me by the , wrong one? Not quite, Marjorie." "I believe you would if your own had been ugly!" She suddenly turn. | ed herself in his arms, put her hands on his shoulders, and «tood looking up at him. "Yo.ur name is Gerard Chadbum?" „sho demanded !y----"It is." "I shan't wake up in the morning and find that you've changed into somebody else?" '"You won't!" "You'll be Gerard Ohadhurn, and let other peonle'v names; alone for the rest of your life?" "T will!" "Then T tilingl'll forgive yon!" She proceeded to forgive him several times over, that there might ho no mistake about it. In the midst of the operation she stopped with a lititle cry. "Gerard!" "What is it, my love?" , "T'vo thouglit—I never thought before—it never came into my bead! We—we need not go away from Castle Marling, need we?" "There is no absolute necessity." "Ah, but I mean we shall live here, shan't we?" "Tf you have no objection." "Objection—ohl Oh I. never thought of it —never once —I was thinking of you. We shall live here —here in my home—l need not go away. And only this morning I was crying in, that stupid old curtain there! And now—oh, I'm too happy —l'm too happy!" "Why, Marjorie, little goose, little goose!" He held her oloso to ihim, feeling that she was indeed trembling on the verge of hysterical! tears, and soothed her with words and caresses. "Whait shall I tell you ? Of how happy i.t made the dear old r-.an to heal 1 , wliat I could tell him about Norah?" "Ah. Norah!" The name seemed to quiet her; she struggled to compose ]ir-self. "How selfish I, am —I have been forgetting ,a.ll about- her! Then he —-Mr Ohadhurn knows her? How stupid I am —I was forgetting again! Why ,of course, it wa s he you meant when you said your father?" "Of course it was!" "Of course! And he is her father, too —or it is just the same. And you have told him all about her?" "All that I oould, love. We have been writing to her. It was as much to 'tell Kim that as to >put my own complications straight that I wired for him to oome down to-day. Here he is! I wonder what he has done with the dowager?" Whatever Mr Ghadbupn liad done with the dowager, he did not .look much the worse for her. He let the curtain fall behind ihim. came down the steps, and advanced torwaid them, sto wily, to be sure, bait merely as though he wanted' to prolong the pleasure of looking at them, for nothing oould have been brighter than his smile of satisfaction. He turned to Marjorie with the smile broadening inito a laugh. "Well, Jim, made your peace yet, or has she been pitofiinig into you as she did into me a while ago?" "Pretty well, sir. I'm forgiven on condition that I never do it again." "Oh, that's it!" With' another jolly laugh Mr Chadbum put hi* .hands on Mariorie's shoulders ,amd ...held her before him. "And what lias she got to say to me. I'wonder? Has filie got a kis s to spare for the wiokeel old fellow who teased her so about her impudent sweetheart just now P" Marjorie had, and gave it with a bus, the eager spontaniety of which delighted him. He returned it and patted her oheek. "There's a good little girl!" he said. "Jim, didn't I tell you after seeing her once that I didn't want a prettier little daughter? Ah, to be sure I did! Perhaps it was onJlv to oblige his .old-father that he fell in love with her —what do you think, my dear?" He s till kept her before

hi in. looking into her shy, blushing, dimpling face with fatherly kindness and' admiration. iNow the question is—what's to he done next, Jim? Their ladyships over there are off tomorrow, it seems, and it won't do, I suppose, for our little girl to be ihere alone until her wedding day. Besides, she'll he loriiely—she'El 'have no one to itailk to about her frocks. You and I are all very well, no doubt, but we don't understand frocks. Also the proprieties would be outraged, I believe, wouldn't they? Who is there that «be won Id like to liave to stay with her? What do you say. my de>ar ?" "May I have whom I like?" Mar_ jorie looked up eagerly. "May T, Mr Chad burn, reallv?" "May you? Why of course you may! Didn't T say so, my dear?" Struck with a sudden thought, Mr Chadburn glanced toward the drawing room with some slight involuntary lengthening of visage. "Have whom you like, mv dear child, certainly! If I might venture to suggest any objection at all, it would bo to that very alarming ladv with the stick. But any one else, my fove —" "The dowager? Oh, I wouldn't have the dowager for the world! She's worse tliaii Fonalla. But, if she