MARC GRECLI. A STORY IN THREE CHAPTERS. By JANET CARROLL. CHAPTER I.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1923, 1 November 1884, Page 5

MARC GRECLI. A STORY IN THREE CHAPTERS. By JANET CARROLL. CHAPTER I.

Black, piebald, bay, creamy, pudgy, lively ponies, and tall, slender-limbed racers 1 All pranoing through gritty sand and flinging it from their hoofs in little red billows. Behind them red and yellow wheels rolled through more and higher dust billows, -that rise so thickly that the human heads, with trumpet-shaped and serpent-twisted instruments held up to their mouths, can be seen but as grimy images ; and from the midst of the great speotral-figured dust mountain rolls out the brassy blaie of oirous music. The Wurrton children are in a shiver of exoited delight. A school holiday and cirous advent had never, in the memory of the biggest Wurrton boy, been a simultaneous ocourrence. Their little legs ran almost as fast as the many-colored ones in the shafts, and their weak little " hoorays " blended well and made happy variation at the piano parts. The music and horses had had all the applause their throats could give ; but when the oaged lions and tigers appeared,.how they exerted and panted their tired lungs to do them homage. When the lion roared, how they screamed in falsetto and danced out all they could not utter on the hot red sandl Some little feet were bare, and these danced the liveliest steps and revelled ankle-deep in the soil that was like brick-filings. All the vehicles and oages, with the drivers, musicians, tall, thin men, and curly-haired youths, having blared and galloped twice through the'Wurrton streets, drew up, and at once began to unharness and unpaok on the large empty square called the Market-reserve ; though the only buying and selling ever done there was when an adventurous Cheap John stood on the back-board of his waggon and oalled on the Wurrtonians to "roll up" and profit by the rare chance of his wondrous sixpenny bargains. Here the canvas circular tents soon filled the blankness, and the occasional yawns and growls of the shaggy lions and sleek tigers kept little infatuated groups standing as neat' as the

bullying of the whip-armed drivers would allow them. Whan the tea-hour came, hunger and the hope of admittance shillings dispersed them, and as their burned legs sped across the hot road there rolled down through the same dust clouds two buggies ; one, laden with holland-clad individuals, stopped at the second-rate hotel about half-way down the street among the little shops and stores ; the other, cushioned and shiny, and dtfawn by a well-matched pair of greys, drove on with its two occupants enwrapped in silk dust coats to the hotel, which, in the parlance of such townships, is called the " tip-top." The circus proprietor, Maro Grecli, and his sister, the lion-tamer, drove round to the stables of the Commercial Hotel, which stands in exclusive dignity on a little sandy eminence at the further end of the long ugly street. It is a weatherboard, two-storeyed building, and between the half-dozen windows of those two storeys runs a tiny balcony, where visitors are always requested to sit in the cool of even by the anxious landlord, who makes it a point to ehpw Wurrton in this manner the number of his guests and consequent happy state of business at the Commercial. Besides the odd passengers who wait for the morning or night coach there were two people staying there when Maro Grecli and his sister arrived ; a dark man wearing a long silk coat and blue goggles. He was supposed . to be at Wurrton on business connected with, the Government, seeking a site for the new Court-house, or probably come to see into the delinquineies of the postal management. Watchful friends warned Maddison, the postmaster, whose normal state was from partial to total inebriation, and the poor little man Buffered horribly between the shock to his I system of this sudden total abstinence and his nervous , dread of the dark, blue-goggled stranger. The other visitor oame before the suspected government man, and had been there just four weeks. She sat opposite the circus master at the tea-table. Her four weeks' residence there had made her familiar with the table arrangements, and when Marc Grecli with the appetite, such a physique as his guaranteed, ran his hungry eyes over the table in search of things the busy waitress carried about everywhere and never put back in the same place, in answer to his look and unheeded call for gravy or vegetables, she silently pointed to them within his reach, and always passed anything tasty on her side over to the fat Marguerite Grecli, whose build like that of her brother spoke her gourmanda propensities. When the meal was over the Greolia went to their rooms, the taciturn goggled man took a seat at a little side table and busied himself with a bundle of blue papers, the coach passengers brought their luggage to the verandah bench and began their long fidgetty waiting for a coach that would not be due for three hours, and Miss Evereste trailed her long black skirt up to the tiny balcony, where she slowly paraded between the open windows and row of geranium pots, never looking at the roofs and shop signs that were below her in the soft evening greyness, but swishing from one little end-rail to the other, with firm, regular steps, her large white hands loosely clasped before her, and her face never turning once to the right nor to the left in that steady march. Marc Grecli smoking a huge cigar at the end bedroom window, leaned out over the sill the better to enjoy it and give the tobacco cloud egress ; but when he heard the steady steps coming down again, and saw the fixed face and joined hands, he drew back with a feeverish grimaoe on his large powerful face. Prom behind the curtain he watched her pass ; it was the profile of the face that had been his vis-?i-vis at the table — he took the cigar out of his mouth slowly, almost reluctantly, and threw it into the empty fireplace. He seldom in his every day life deprived himself of any humoring to give another pleasure ; no man living was more selfish in trifles ; he had not onoe in the whole course of his strong, vigorous life put aside one taste or caprice of his own for the convenience or happiness of a fellow creature at the demand of etiquette or human policy — the promptings must needs be of nobler origin. Such an innovation I He wondered why he had done it as he watched it|burn itself|out and wreathe its substance in scented smoke that rolled up the dirty grime and Boot above. He was gone to the canvas-covered market reserve before the Bwishing and regular footfall ceased on the balcony. When the black dress was hung up on the wooden peg behind the door and she had put on a soft, cool print; wrapper, Bona Evereste sat by the window to think. The night appearance of Wurrton was, if it could be, less prepossessing than that of daylight — dull lanterns dangling before the publio-houses, and little, dimly-lit windows nearly buried in the shades of the verandahs, just these little blots and specks of light in the hot darkness were all she could see, for to-night the market reserve is the nucleus of the life and light of the township. She can hear the faint roar of the waves of applauding noise, the thud, thud of the drum, and now and then the roaring of one of the caged or performing animals. It all sickens and distracts her — she wants to put her ways and means, her demands and resources before her ; to read over a chapter or two of the book of her past life, and try, by wondering, anticipating, and hoping, to read the uncut, unsealed book of the future ; even so near a future as next week, or two days hence. Her little purse lies on her lap, and her fingers mechanically drop the few shillings and sixpences from one of its compartments into the other. Before she drew down the window and lit the candle she told herself that on Saturday she must pay Mr. Heddles, the hotelkeeper, four pounds fifteen out of her five pound-note, and all her odd silver coins are owing to the proprietor of the Wurrton Herald. " As soon as a reply comes he will take out the advertisement. If it be in still, in tomorrow morning, I will know I have failed, and my life is no longer in my own hands. I can do no more — my destiny is beyond my ken. The oircua people stay till Sunday — perhaps they would take me 1 " and a smile struggled up and dispelled the growing fixedness of her features. She is now opposite Marc Grecli again at breakfast; he had the Wurrton Harald. Slowly and successively the four pages were turned cut, and he read as leisurely as though no blue goggles were indignantly focussed on his cool'grey eyes, and no anxious-faced girl opposite was tingling with nervous expectancy and fear. Still holding it he spoke to his sister — Margaret he called her — Marguerite was on the posters outside, — asked her if she would care to see the township, or if he should take her anywhere, adding that her refusals were wise in his opinion, as the weather heat showed no promise of abatement. " Shall I pass you some toast, Margaret? " "No!" " Well excuse me," and with a Blow cool look at Bona Evereate as he rose, he went out. "The newspaper, if you please, Mr. Heddles," and the anxious landlord, soared at the rage-suppreased tones, laid it before his irritable guest before she could put out her hand, or her slow tongue form a word. She I moved to the window and clasping her hands on the broad sill watched the sleepy dog and drinking horses, when the swish of silk dress, grating o! the chair, and clink of banglaa and jewellery told of Mias Grecli'fl exit : she never moved, she was waiting for what oame a few moments after, the crinkle of the

paper as it was put on the tabled- Before Mr. Angus's long silk coat was quite round the half-closed door, she had stepped from the window to the table. The noisy crackling thing would scarcely bend in her shaking hands, and when the eighth page came it was all blurred. Mr. Angus returning from his room had passed the door, with his puggareed hat in his hand, before she had seen that the advertisement was still in, and realised what she had told herself at the window last night, that the oars were out of her hands now, and her life must follow the drift of the strong ourrents of Fate or Chance. In the printing office she was told that nothing had come for her. " Then, Mr. Maldham, do you think that there are no people, rich people, in all the district where this paper circulates who want a governess, nurse, or sempstress ; no churoh that wants an organist ; no shop that wants a saleswoman ? I have advertised every week for four weeks, surely there must be something wrong 1 Is it that the wording was not lucid enough, or the non-reference to testimonials ? " Mr. Maldham, writing, dashing and scoring, stopped and looked with an expression in his eyes not all unkindness at her, and the boy sorting metal types at a bench opposite lifted his head and gave her a long, curious, but gentle look. Pity prompted the action of both ; eaoh was touched by the forlornness and sense of crushed effort her words bore. She listened in a hopeless but courteous way to the few sympathetic sentences ; then, looking firmly in the man's face to put down the irresolution there, she said, laying her hand on the desk before him, " This 'is the amount of my indebtedness to you." Outßide, the hot glare made her close her eyes ; she shivered in nervous pain. The hot sand stretohed under foot away in a crooked line between the verandah posts, and beyond the shops and houses, eevering every elevation and depression within sight. Such a desert 1 No scrap of green leaf nor plantnothing but grimy, blistered houses on the red waste. The dark greenness of the bush that approached this sandbed as nearly as ten miles that might have relieved the eye by making a grateful horizon for it to rest upon was now hidden by a cumulus of low, thin smoke. This added to the lurid richness of the coloring. Red of soil, bright blue of smoke, shimmering sun — blaze and burning unshaded sky — each in itself sufficient, even in a picture, to make one feel warm : here in scorching reality, and all combined I In front of the printing office, the long, ugly street on each side of her, stood Rona Evereste, as though collecting her strength and tensionxng her vitality in the scrap of shade for the unsheltered walk to the Commercial. She suffered the physical discomfort of such weather ; the burning clinging of her clothes on her limbs, the hot air on her face and dazzling glare on her eyes ; and what was far more painful, those nervous irritants, the hot, bare, unharmonised colors : she suffered these, but the vague sensation, that hopeless, helpless desolation brings to a brisk, vigorous mind, was keen torture. She did not carry her pain in her face or manner ; no weak, tearful eyes, no shrinking or stooping of the figure. No one passing her filled their brains with Burmises or had their sensitiveness pained. She said twice before that her life was gone out of her own hands if her one speculation failed her, and now she stood there trying to believe and feel it. The colossal proportions of the master of the Champion Circus Company came out from the canvas oamp and moved down in the direction of the hotel. His back was towards her. She looked down once, and with a quick sigh as of relief, though vague wonderment was on her face and in her heart and mind, she walked quiokly after him. The swinging of the huge, shapely limbs slaokened as her hurried step 3 neared him, and when she called he turned to her. They stood opposite each other over the red-polored sand and under the sun glare for ten minutes ; though it was painfully uncomfortable he bore it in his absorbing interest in what she said, and she — she was so full of nervous pain and intense anxiety, she did not feel it at all 1 11 That is all. I need not tell you more, and I need not ask anything. I cannot guide myself any further — if you do not " " In the parlor of the Commercial, with a glaaß of lemonade before you and those gloves and hot things off, you may finish that, and I will make my answers." She felt cooler and rested already; the anxiety passed away, and his grave face and steady voice gave her relief as soon as he spoke. • " I would like Margaret to be present, not that it will make any difference, but her interest in the project I am entertaining is second only to mine." While he was seeking his sister she took off her hat and gloves and thirstily drank the pooling drink he had brought her, wondering if the project meant employment among the lions. " Perhaps I will be her assistant I " She had passed the stage of seeking equilibriums for herself, and was now ready either to sink or rise, not caring much which she did. " How old are you, Miss Evereste ? " was the first question when the three were seated close together at one end of the dining-table. No other room offered any privacy, the blue papers and blue goggles above them were at the parlor table, and a card party sat in the little bar sitting-room. Hi 3 question was gently introduced, as though he feared her sensitiveness, and he added quickly : " I want to write a description of you in half an hour, and the figures of your age will be more graphic than pages of surmises. " " I am twenty-two years of age." He restrained the look of surprise that sprang into his eyes, and turning to his sister, who sat with a look almost of indifference on ]|er large, handsome face, said: " Fairy will like Miss Kvereste, Margaret." " She likes -so few people that I cannot answer for her. I don't remember all the nonsense she talks, but I've heard her describe what she calls her ideal woman. In appearance, as far as dark hair, quiet blue eyes, and grave manner and speech go, Miss ( Evereste answers the description." Ha listened gravely, with an amused smile creeping into his deep-grey eyes, and moving his huge moustache; and when he spoke again, the cool business tone was gone, and a ring gentler and softer made his deep voice very pleasant to hear. 11 Fairy's ideal woman, are you ? So much the better." He laid his large, ringless hands on the table, and beat finger-tip time on it. His eyes, full of reflection and calculation, looked at the yellow sun-glare through the window, and the two women waited, both watching him — one so eagerly. 11 Miss Evereßte, as you are, without telling me anything beyond what you told me outside there-^-your failure in the effort to get employment and your friendliness — will you accept the charge, unlimited charge, guidance, and, where required, instruction, of a delicate, fanciful girl of sixteen — without asking me or her any questions ?" "Yes." Her {laconic answer was so decided, and came so quickly on his question, that he smiled again— a smile almost paternally indulgent in its superiority of conscious strength and power. He stood up, quickly and suddenly, and laid one band gently on

her Bhoulder. Startled, her eyeB lifted themselves up to follow his face, and he looked straight into them " There is no question that you would not answer, but there are many that I would not. You say ' Yes.' Well, I will write out directions for you at onca, and you can start tomorrow morning. My written direotions will tall, if you do not know, how to go to Melbourne, what to do when you get there, and where you will fiad Fairy. That will be enough for a week, then. I will write a letter or two ; I will want you to take her from the cooped and caged life she is leading now, and give her flowers and freedom in a cottagegarden, and fresh air out of the city. I am looking into your face, and reading there the plainly-written texts — Confidence, Strength, and Affection. I can trust you. Fairy's weakness can lean on you. You will grow fond of her, love her for her very weakness ; it is your nature to do it." She did not shrink from the pressure of his hand on her shoulder, but the position confused her ; and Miss Greoli's stolid, unreassuriDg eyes increased her confusion, so much so that the intense sense of gratitude in her was nearly overcome by it. " You do not speak. ' Perhaps I understand " and he turned to the table and took a cheque book from his pocket. While writing two cheques he explained that one was for her travelling expenses and the other the advanced remuneration of a quarter's service. Remorseful blushes and entreating eyea made restitution for the erst oonfuaed silence, and when she began to speak her gratitude and thanks, he said they must both go out of the room, he wanted to write a long fetter to Fairy, and the promised directions. The parlor waa empty now, and Miss Greoli led the way towards it. " Fairy is fond of music. Are you ? " For answer Rona opened the piano and played a sparkling operatic selection, and Bliss Grecli smiled her approbation. " Another bond between you." " Tell me some more of her tastes, please, that I may be the more ready to gratify them." " Fairy's ? Oh, I don't know them. lam seldom with her. I have occupation, too, in town. lam never idle, Miss Evereste ; Ido more work than Marc, far more ; he admits that himself. See the weather I travel in ; the regular night performances, besides occa- | sional practice and training of Boadicea, the new lioness." " In Melbourne I give riding lessons, and am due at the riding school in six weeks. That prevents me from going to Queensland with Marc." Striking notes softly with random fingers, she had been listening with a tiny fold on her lips and a lid- veiled cynic flash in her blue eye 3, till the last sentenoe came ; then they turned, wide open and alarmed — " He's going to Queensland ' They dwelt on Miss Grecli's face with oceans of questioning in them. •' Shall I tell you a little more than Maro did ? It does not seem fair to send you away knowing so little." " The directions that he will write might." " Oh, no they won't 1 They'll tell you nothing. Marc never had any mercy on a woman's curiosity. He despises every weakness. "I do not want to know anything. I am not curious ; I will not be. I want to be all and do all that is right, and that my nature will give strength to be and to do ; that I may be deserving of hia trust and favor always. You cannot, no one can, understand what I feel for the man who had done so much for me to-day. I wish I could express it." Miss Grecli stooped near to the sensitive, quivering face — "Your name is Bona, isn't it?" " Ye 3." 11 Well, Rona Evereste, be grateful if you like, but don't love my brother, for Fairy ia Marc's daughter, and hei mother is alive somewhere. (To he continued.)

Georges Leschot, Inventor of the Diamond Drill, Georges Auguste Lesohot, who died at Paris at the age of eighty-fpur years, was a very remarkable man. It ia to him that we owe the plan of employing the black Brazilian diamonds, or" carbonados," for piercing rooks, an invention which has proved of immense value. Leschot was the son of a skilful mechanician, Jean Frederic Leschot by name, whose automata, singing birds, artificial limbs, and so on were the admiration of the celebrated Vaucanson. He also effeoted great improvements in the manufacture of watohea by mechanical means, in connection with the Geneva house of Vacheron and Constantine reoeiving in 1845 a prize from the French Academy of Sciences in recognition of his services. In 1861, the black, amorphous, but very hard diamonds of Brazil, know as " carbonados," came to Europe, and Lesohot'B son, being then engaged in Italian railway -work for the house of Vitali, Picard, et Cie., knowing the idea of his father that diamonds might be used instead of steel tools to out rooks (an idea which had occurred to him in examining the fine striations cut in some speoimens of ancient porphyry), communicated with his father on the subject, and the result was that Leschot devised the diamond perforator, which has been in use ever since, especially in England, Germany, and America.

Illuminating Gas from Fermenting Manure. M. Gaxon has demonstrated to the Paris Academic dcs Soience3 the possibility of obtaining illuminating gas in considerable quantity from the fermentation of cow and horse droppings. This material is subject to fermentations of different orders, accordingly as it is kept in a close receptacle or allowed free access of air. In the latter case its temperature rises rapidly, and there is a_ great evolution of carbonic acid ; while in the former the temperature remains fairly constant, and there is an active production of carbureted hydrogen mixed with carbonic acid. The evolution of carbureted hydrogen is ascribed to the agency of organisms infinitely small, but differing in kind from those found in aerated manure. These have been isolated, and have been observed to occasion the evolution of the same gases from pure cellusose. The carbureted hydrogen disengaged from fresh manure kept in a close box, one meter square, has been oollected by M. Gayon and burnt before a scientific sooiety at Bordeaux. The volume of carbureted hydrogen given off by 1 cubic meter of fresh horse droppings is about 100 litres, or 3*53 cubic feet, per twenty-four hours. M. Pasteur suggests that as this method of preserving manure in close storage retains ammonia, it is possible that in certain circumstances it it might be utilized for the purpose of supplying usef ul heating and lighting gas without injury to the value of the fertilizer.

Paper Impervious to Grease or Water. In Burgoyne's Monthly of Pharmacy we find the following method described for rendering paper impervious to grease or water. Parchment paper is plunged into a warm solution o£ concentrated gelatine, to which has been added 2J to 3 per cent, of glycerine, and allowed to dry. The resulting paper is impervious to grease. If desired to make a paper waterproof, the same parchment paper is taken, dipped in bisulphide of carbon containing 1 per cent, of linseed oil and 4 per cent, of caoatohouo.