CHAPTER VIII.—(CONTINUED.)

Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 205, 2 September 1873, Page 3

CHAPTE R VIII.—(CONTINUED.)

' TiIAT would bo a dangoioiw experiment, unless Aouloied him,' said Florence, with a pretty mationh gravity which became her well. 'Is there any one whom jou do love, mid with whom yon would be happier than jou aro here ?' Miriam laughed uneasily 'You take everything so | seriously, Kose. My rescuer is only ideal : he has no existence, so far as I know ; he certainly has to be sought 'and found. Ido not care one straw for any one in the world whom I should ever dream of marrying ! Hut I cau tell you tbis, Rose — I intend to seek and to find some one who will take me an ay from this hnieftil place, though he should bj as ugly as sin, and as old a3 Methuselah!' Florenco wns rather cowed by her sister-in-law's stronger nature ; and she was, besides, too much engrossed in the sorrowful realities of her ow n life, the retrospect of her past, tho long, indefinite separation from Walter, her uneasy sense of her own false position, concerning which she never could altogether silence her conscience, to bo able to make tho mor.il homily for which she felt the occasion called. She could not blame Miriam severely ; she could only feel that there was a great difference between thcYn, and that she could never have proposed to herself such a way out of any position of trouble as a marriage without loveS ' You are mucli better off than I am,' Miriam broke out, after a brief pause. ' You have not got to put up with papa ; you only see him occasionally, by accident, and could soon avoid that, witli a little trouble. I have always said it was well for Walter, for he could get away ! And I will get away too, if I can.' Three days elapsed, during which the state of things at the Firs remained almost unchanged. Mr Clint did speak occasionally to his daughter, but he made no reference to Walter or his letter. At the end of that time, Florence heard from her husband that he had received a communication from his father, couched in the sternest and coldest terms. ' I asked hira, through Miriam, as you know,' wrote Walter, ' to give me £300, to join with Daly, and told him he should never receive another application for money from me, nor hear of mo again if I wore not successful. He tells roe he accedes to my request; encloses the money, and begs me to understand that he requires strict adherence to the terms of my letter ! There is the whole subataneo of his for you ; there is my dismissal from England ; there is my father's farewell to his only son ! Never mind, darling ; I don't, for I have your love and your truth, and jou will welcome me 'home whether lam successful or not. But / toiU succeed : lam full of hope and confidence. I have simply acknowledged, with thanks, my father's letter and its contents ; that is the only answer be cares to have from me. And now, I have nothing to think of but you and our long parting. 1 And then thehtteijdealt in sentiments wherewith woare"not concerned. Florence was very sad after she had read Walter's letter. It was a great relief that his father had given him the money he asked for ; that Walter was not to comnieiu-o his new career with a debt to his generous friend ; but I hat the father and son should part thus was terrible to her, quite apart from the share she had accepted , out of obedience to Walter, in this untoward family history Neither the nor Miriam could discover in the face or manner of Mr Clint any sjmptom of relenting towards his son, or regrot foir his denavture When the day came on which Walter was to sail, with Daly, from Liverpool, Miriam locked herself into her rooms, declined all attendance except that of her maid — who was much p'tied by the servants for her enforced seclusion, because her mistress was 'fretting' — and sent word to her father that she was not well enough to appear at diner. Mr Clint dined none the worse, and left the dining table none the earlier ; but when he went to his study, he set a mark against the dato of that day in a private memorandum-book, and wrote out under it that terrible utterance of old Lear's which says that ' sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.' It never occurred to Roginald Ohnt that he could be wrong in anything ; ho never reflected that it was not fair to expect lovo and consideration from children to whom he had never shewn either, but had invariably treated with tho opposite of both. Time went on, after tho day of Walter's departure, very slowly and painfully to the two women who loved lmn best, and whose hearts, were with him on hi§ tediom and perilous vovago. A period must elapse before they could have tidings of him The color faded in Florence's check, and her blue eyes lost much of their brightness. M'nam, too, was sad and sorrowful, but ihe was also ineffably bored, which Florence vrna not. All placci were alike to her without Walter, in ouo sense ; but, in another, the Firs was the place which she best liked to be. It was eloquent of Walter toher; and she took a romantic pleasure in comparing every nook and corner of ihe unlovely old house and ground" with tho picture which his description had summoned up in her imagination. She liked the Firs, but Miriam hated f bt, place. They had as little bociety as Miriam had expe» ted, and her letters to Miss Monitor are full of this grievance Mr Mavtin and his wife, a homely person, to whom Miriam would hardly have condescended' if she had had any other choice ; the ' shady' attorney before mentioned ; and the parson and his wife, who were not to be cheated in their charitable design of being kind to Miriam by Mr Clint's rudeness, formed their entire circle. The « county' did not, since Mrs Clint's death, visit at the Firs, and there were no neighbouring families of any gentility except tho three aforesaid. The great alleviation of MHam's lot was the possession of a. pony, a well-bred, handsome animal, which had been selected for her by Mr Martin ; to whoso interposition, in his medical capacity, she owed her father's consent to such an addition to his. expenses. It was not possible that Florence should share her good fortune in this respect, which vexed Miriam ; but Florence laughed at her vexation, drew a funny picture of the effect on public opinion of setting a lady's maid on horseback, and was always well content to see Miriam set off, attended by Robei t, for the long rides in the autumnal mornings, which left her at leisuro to indulge her sad thought! and timid hopes while she <at at her needlework. One day, after Miriam had been out longer than usual, she returned in high spirits, and carrying a bunch of fino floners in her hand. 'Florence, who always kept up appearances by attending her at her toilot, was about to take off her hat, when Miriam forestalled her bj tossing it on tho bed, and breaking out at once into an account of her ' adventures.' 'Where do you suppose these flowei-3 came from?' she asked Florence. ' Covcnt G-nrden, I should think.' ' Just io. There's a gentlemen come down to tho parsonage, an old acquaintance of Mr Cook's : he's come to look at Winton— that place that'i to be sold over at Stoke, you know— and he brought such flowers and fruit to Fanny ! She would make me take these ' Florence had never seen Miriam look so animated. She had clipped the italks of the flowers and put them in water, and now she resolutely began to take Miriam's habit off, reminding her that she had barely time to dress for dinner. You may be sure I said everything against Winton I could possibly think of, 1 said Miriam. ' I hate the place-a dull gloomy barrack, in a sticky clay soil ; be*ides>, the neighborhood is odious: fancy any one who has plisnty of money, and all England to choose from, settling down here. 1 ' ° ' How did Mr and Mrs Cooke like jour tryin^ to persuade their friend against their neighborhood ?' ' Oh, he isn't a fnend — he is only an acquaintance.' ' Besides, I should have supposed a new family, so near no Stoke, would have been an adtantage to yourself ' said Florenco ' ' Oli, it isn't a family j it's only one porson. Mr St Quenhn Is a widower. HH t > has just returned from India, and wants to buy a pl»,-o m England, in Hampshire especially. Some one gaio him an introduction to Mr Cooke ; he won't employ any man of business in the purchase, and he came yown to tho inn. After they had seen him a few times, Fanny invited him to the parsonage, and there ho is.' ° ' You saw him, I suppose ? ' ' O yes, I saw him ; and he saw me.' There was something odd in Miriam's deliberate tone, and she smiled demurely, as her eyes met those of Florence, reflected m tho looking-glas* beforo which she was seated. ' There's the bell. That will do. Rose'— she stopped on her way to the door— ' don't look so suspicious. Mr St Quentin is not far from aixty.'

The German paper manufacturers have of late been very successful in the production of paper and cloth from corn husks, the machinery required for the manipulating process being essentially the same as that originally employed in \merican paper mills working on rags. Thr husks, it appears, are first boiled wich an alkali in tubular boilers, as a result of which the fibrei of the hunks are found at the bottom of the boiler in a spongy condition, filled with glutinous substance or dough, which latter is pressed outYrom the fibres by hydraulic process, leaving the fibre in the shape of longitudinal threads, interspersed with a dense mass of short fibre. Linen that is made from these Ion" fibrei is sai.l to furnish a very good substitute for the coarser kind* of (lax and hemp, while it is superior to jute, gunny cloth and tho like. The paper— for which mostly the short fibres ire used, the long fibres constituting the material for spinning—is stronger than papers of tho samo weight made from linen or cotton rags. Tho hardness and firmness of grain characterising the .paper thus made, are said to exceed that of even the best mado English papers. Its durability exceeds that pf paper produced from any other substance, ana it can bo made extremely transparent without sacrificing any portion of its strength, 'lbo fibro is easily worked, either alone or mixed with rags, into the finest "writing or printing paper, and it readily takei any tint or color that nmv bo desired. The yield of tho husks employed for this purpose is -Hid to be 30 por cent, of fibu«, 10 of 'gluten, and 60ofdougi. "

The Melbourne Herald refers to Sir George Bowen as follow! : — "Since Sir George Bowen arrived here he has faded to perform the duties appertaining to the vice-regal position in any manner at all satisfactory. He has made pretty speeches, hut that is all. He has been received with acclamation by the colonists, but has failed to reciprocate the kindly feeling exhibited towards him, save by the empty words he has uttered. It is at least c .peeled of a Governor that he shall do the duties ot a host graciously and with no sparing hand, and ) et last evening, at the gieat annual occasion when her Majesty's representative is expected to appear in the chaiacter of the bountiful host, he certainly did appear as host, but not as the bountiful host. A good joke is told at the expense of a well-known Senator, who is notorious for taking two cocktails in succession before breakfast. One morning while the Senator was practising at the Metropolitan bar, a friend put to him the impertmeut question: — "Senator, why do you Jake two cocktails as a custom? Won't one tone you?" The Senator drew himself up:— "l will tell you why 1 take two coctails. "When I have taken one it makes me feel like another man. Well, you see, I'm bound by common courtesy to treat that man, so I take a second. "