CHAPTER II.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1926, 8 November 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER 11.

Eona followed her written directions, and iive days later stood in the second story draw- i ing-room of a tall, many- windowed board i and lodging house o£ the city before a slight, j cambric-clad figure sitting in a large armchair, its gieat blue stuffed arms and width of seat and back making her look smaller and more fragile. She wad very tired. It was the long, hob journey that had drawn those weary lines on her calm tace. Calm, weary, and indifferent she appeared, but her heart was sounding loud thumps, and in her blue eyes was vague wonder as they searched the young face that leaned agaiast the chair-back. 11 What a brave, stiong woman you are, Miss Everesle. I can understand from your eyes the spirit you ha\e, that would prompt you to come all that way alone and unaided ; that would prompt you to do anything you determined on doing alone and unaided. And what pride you must have ! How 1 wish I could be great and proud ! Physical weakness saps the strength of the mind, and its dependence crushes out all piide, at least, it is so with me. If I were strong in body I would be like you. 1 am nearly seventeen years of age and 100k — " Weakly she moved her hands down along the arm-reals, and pulling together all her little strength, rose up on her feet. Eona thought she had never seen anything human ao perfectly beautiful as the slenderness and ethereality of her limbs and figure : she looked like a beautiful, delicate child of ten years old ; only the pathos and sweetness of her face betokened the maturity of her yeara. " You are, indeed, Fairy ! " and without trying to resist the impulse, she kissed her face and soft iair hair. The delicate face leddened bughtly, whether from anger or pleasure Eona did not know, but it made the keen sensitiveness of her charge plain to her. She did not speak, only sat back again and took the card Eona had held in her hands all the time : the house address in Marc G-recli'a strong characters was pencilled on it. " What large letters ! Marc's writing is characteristic, isn't it ? " She smiled, and Miss Evereste thought smiles were not on her face what they are on other faces, they contorted and gave her pretty pinched features a weird old look. " I received Marc's letter only yesterday, but I have made your room nice for such short notice. Mrs. Daly will tell you that she scrubbed ihe floor, cleaned the windows, made the bed, and put things on the tables — so she did, but she did not make it nice. I waited till she gave the last duster-flick this morning, then I went in. That is what tired me. It is the second room on the right out there. Please come out in about fifteen minutes to dinner." Long white curtains draped the open windows and hung round the little bed, a soft white mat lay on the floor beside it, and' flowers everywhere — great glossy-leaved plants stood in the fireplace, slender fuschias nodded behind the window-ourtains, and a beautiful tea-rose leaned its half-opened petals over the edge of a bowl of water on the mantel- shelf ; a tiny table near the bed was laden with well-bound volumes — all modern reading, some poetry, some prose, all bearing Fairy's name in Marc Greek's large irregular writing. Opposite the bed hung a delightful scrap of coloring — a seascape — showing such natural foam and water-swell, that it cooled one to look at it this hot day ; over the head was fastened a tiny black cross. For a moment Eona wondered if this queer little invalid had high-church tendencies, or was it the sweet ultra refinement and simple childishness, that was such a prominent part of her nature, that prompted it ? Touching it reverently she began to think ; she had not really thought of herself, her undertaking, her surroundings, anything, since that day the week before when she had accepted the leadership of Marc Grecli, had given him the curbing and turning of the unmanageable current of her life. " I accept it ; the first cross I ever had. Oh, Marc Grecli, Fairy, what does ifc all mean ? " The tinkle of a bell and clatter of table-laying warned her, and with a queer sense of unsatisfied wonder, which came all the stronger because she tried to suppress it, she went out to hear this child-woman talk of her father as Marc, and try to forget words that had made her quiver with sensitive pain and shame six days ago when spoken in Margaret Grecli's cool, unmodulated voice, and driven home by the unfeeling hardness of her large handsome eyes. On the tenth day Marc's letter came :—: — i *' My dear Miss E-vereste, having given you and Fairy sufficient time to become understandable to each other — if such a state of things could come to pass between two such " unco queer " creatures — I now set you to the work I mentioned in Wurrton : you are energetic and above the timid inaotion of your sex — it will be no trial to you to do what I want, and I think if I read you aright the effort on account of its expected results will be pleasing. " You can see by this time how injurious to Fairy must be the life she leads, and her sensitiveness is too keen, too fine to bear exposure of her weakness and delicacy of health by indulging in out-door exercise. I know, without asking, that you have never been able to get her- out for a walk or drive. You are strong-willed, Miss Eona, but my spritish little Fairy in a match for you there — not that lam glad of that, I want her to be guided by a sensible womanly mind like yours, and she will be if you can make her love you. "Do that, and I will call that roasting, scorching day, when we talked in the sandy street .of Wurrton, the luckiest one of my life.

" Now for what I want you to do. I enclose the address of a cottage, which will be unoccupied at the end of the month, also the addreso of the proprietor. Without any regard to a little extra cost, use up the cheque I send in fitting up the place, as it will best suit Fairy's taste and yours. " Margaret will be down with you, in the course of six or seven weeks, and I after a run through the Queensland coast district will pay Fairy a flying visit, before I take the company on the Singapore and Indian trip. " I know I shall be planting my big caroase just in the wrong places, smashing your bits of china, trampling on your ferns and flowers, and altogether play the old game of Taurus and the delf, in this doll's house of yours, in Hawthorn. Nevertheless this big circus lion must be entertained and petted, for a whole fortnight in Elf's palace, before ho faces the long Indian tramp. " Be careful of my little>easure Rona, my only treasure, and write me a letter minute in detail of her health and progress. — Faithfully yours, Marc Gbecli. Fairy read the folded sheet directed to her and enclosed in Miss Evereste's, and then, with inquisitive, jealous eyes, watched Kona's face while she read. As soon as Bona looked up the small hand was held out. "I want to see what Marc says to you to make you look so glad ; mine is so short. Here, we can exchange." Much of Fairy's childish wilfulnesa and irritancy annoyed her at first, but she was gradually and firmly stamping it out with such tact and subtlety that only the result showed the process. This jealousy of everything and everybody, in which or whom Marc Grecli showed any interest, was painfully apparent in the petulancy of her voice and manner when she spoke of the brevity of his letters, the rarity of his visits, his taking Margaret with him and leaving her ; then when the better part of her nature came to her aid showing her her ingratitude and selfishness, her susceptible and sensitive heart cried out "all its remorse at Ronas knee ; and Rona, in those moods, applied the curatives that were needed, in grave, kindly advice and gentle remonstrance, every word strengthening her influence and adding to the stature of dairy's growing love for her strong sweet guide and frxend. Grouching irresolutely in her seat holding the letter close to her, Roiia looked angrily indignant at the jealous face and outstretched hand. " You won't let me read Marc's letter ? " and the pained hysterical pitch of her thin weak voice reminded Rona of the great weakness of the little thing. " Fairy, Mr. Grecli in his love for you has ppoiled you. This letter will only add to the work ; it is full of you and his plans for your well-being. It is Fairy from beginning to end." "Isit ? Oh, Eona, give it io me," and the eager little hand took it from her. Fairy's long brown eyelashes always drooped and her wan face began to grow haggard when night came, so when she sat alone with her work and book after Fairy had said " Good night" she took out the letter. " His only treasure 1 Then his wandering wife — what is she ? " Her eyes wandered all over it, and she smiled as the sentences in random glancing caught her eye. " A circus lion ! He is just a great noble-looking lion. No man ever j so closely resembled a great glaring eyed, shaggy-maned lion — resembles a brute, yet is the truest type of a."great, noble, handsome man that woman ever saw." Then falling into her old trick she clasped her large white hands before her and thought. First Mare Grecli's sweet words of praise made her calm eyes shine happily as they fixed themselves on the scarlet fringe balls of the window curtain before her ; from the letter on her lap to the hot days in Wurrton when she first aaw him was but a natural course, .and her thoughts reflected in her eyes and reposeful faoe were there for several minutes; then they suddenly went back further, and the mirroring showed darker and sadder. She was thinking now of three years of her life before the circus company came to Wurrton and the master of it found her at the little shabby Commercial Hotel waiting for replies to an advertisement offering her services to anybody who would pay her for doing the work of a governess, nurse, seamstress or saleswoman. If " we should count time by heart-throbs," then Rona though she would be very old indeed. Three years — only three years ! and only a light-haired, mild-mannered woman to cause it all. A woman with a faded, cruol face, fair plaited hair and studied hypocritical manners—whenever Rona saw a tall woman in the street with fair hair and thin face, she would turn her head away and a look almost of loathing creep into her eyes, which at all other times shone calm and pure. At ten years of age Rona Evereste was sent to England to a well-reputed school in Manchester ; at nineteen she came back to Australia to take charge, as only daughter, of her father's house. She had not been told of his second marriage, nor of the sudden and utter failure of his health. He would not tell her ; his letters never mentioned this second wife, who, in his illness, ruled him with a stiff hand, so that he longed for the softness and sympathy of his little daughter. In his weak reasoning he said to himßelf if he told her she might not come, and he could not face the lingering torture of paralytic inability and helplessness, unsympathised with, perhaps condemned by the cruel lips and eyes of the woman he had put over Roua, and in her gentle dead mother's place. Three years after Rona came, he lived ; every day, every hour of those years were filled with galling humiliations and sufferings. Every species of tyranny and persecution that the mind of a cruel, petty-natured woman could devise were put on her, but as long as that poor grey head lay on its pillow, and those sunken eyea brightened for her, she would bear it. The very day that that -grey head and those eyes were hidden in the grave Bhe freed herself from them, and without one word to the woman who sat hypocritically , aad and dejected, robed in rich black crape, ! and surrounded by fair-haired, thin-faced* relatives, she went away, giving up her portion in return for peace and independence. But those three years, and the hatred of that smiling-mouthe3 woman whose cruel eyes and faded face, surmounted by plaits of fair, lustreless hair, were ever before her ; and time nor change, nor the engrossing occupation she now had, could lessen the bitterness of the memory of her life before Marc Grecli held out his hand, and turned her helpless life-drift at Wurrton. She wrote, as ha asked, of Fairy — Fairy's health, sayings, projects, and love for him. She told him that this last was the mainspring of her life, and the regulator of her every thought and desire. She thought, as she wrote, how his cold, haughty eyea would warm* and soften, and his large, firm mouth look aa soft as a child's, when he would read this of Fairy. Margaret Grecli came just as they were settled in their beautiful little cottage home. Her apathetic indifference to the pretty sur- . roundinga vexed Fairy, who had toiled two whole days at the guest-chamber, as she called it. # •• I hung up pictures of horse-racing and hunting, and kept out all the flowers that I< thought she would not like. Marc doesn't care for pretty things; 1 but he would have noticed and praised an effort like that. I

think she is just stupid, Roaa ; her brains and intellect sleep, while her body growa fat and her muscles strong. I have too little corporeality and she haa too much. What a pity we cannot borrow and lend ! But I should not talk like this. Margaret is full of kindness, though it, too, is usually dormant—never exercised but at Marc's bidding. .1 shall never forget their taking me from my unfortunate, tipsy mother. Margaret held me in her warm, strong arms, and asked my mother to kiss me before I went from her for ever. She was mad — mad with poison she had been drinking, and mad that she was again in prison with a long term before her, and when Margaret said that she atruck her and me. My face had the mark for a long time, and Marc cried over it when we got home. Your eyes are showing all your horror, Puma. You see that even natural pride of character I have not. Now that I like you so much I want you to know, principally, that you may see the greatness of Marc Grecli's character. He was in the court that day, and when he saw poor, puny, little me beside the vagrant prisoner, and heard the condemnation of my life to the Orphan Asylum, he stalked out of the place and sent Margaret for me. He took me into his noble heart and has kept me there ever since ; he has taken you too, liana, I know by that letter, but you are not to him what I am. He loves me." Her slender limbs were trembling and distorted under the violence of her mental pain, and the quaint, unyouthful face was all drawn, though the glad flash in her eyes at the last words relieved Hona, and gave her courage to probe the aching part again. " Poor little suffering Fairy 1 Was it the sight of you alone that determined Mr. Grecli's act ? Did he not know you before ? Did Margaret and your mother know eaoh other?" '• No. No one but thieves and vagabonds knew my mother, though she was eduoated and very pretty, and far above such associations in her sobriety. Oh, Kona, don't talk any more ; my very soul is full of sick loathing and pity." After that they were, if anything, closer to each other. Margaret attended hei; riding school every day, W4."ote to agents, and visited professionals. She was never idle. She never interfered with their evening amusement either, for while they played, sang, or read, she dozed on the sofa, her shapely head and spleudid limb 3 and bust showing to such advantage in repose that Bona often said she ought to be sculptured. To be Continued.

Fluids and Fat. The removal of surplus fat from the body by appropriate means naturally forms a subject of interest to the well-to-do classes. Various modifications of solid diet having had their day, the consumption of fluids is now undergoing regulation in respect of quantity among those who find their own presence insupportable. There is something in this theory, inasmuch as liquids, merely as such, materially aid the digestion and absorption of the food with jvhich they are taken. Again, several of the fluids in most common use are, directly or indirectly, fat forming. Thus coc*a contains a very large proportion of fat, coffee a considerable amount along with amyloid substances, which are also represented in tea to a much smaller extent, and which readily pass by chemical decomposition into the form of fat. Beer, wine, and spirit are all fattening, partly in consequence of their saccharine and starchy constituents, and partly from their tendency to hinder excretion of waste products of food, and, when acting on any but a languid frame, to hurry and to slur that methodical oxidation by the .blood on which the maintenance of sound tissue depends. General opinion, we are sure, will bear us out in saying that when the solids consumed are moderate in amount and digestible, and when the fluid is merely fluid, not fatty or amyloid in its composition, and not stimulant, freo drinking will not influence obesity. We can call to mind heavy drinkers of water and regular consumers of tea, moderate in diet otherwise, whose habits engendered not the slightest tendency to corpulence. We should without hesitation recommend their practice to the stout, and should rely for the reduction of their bulk not on any further alteration of their diet, which might easily be carried so far as to starve their more important tissues, but on the maintenance of regular and sufficient physical exercise. — Lancet.

Egyptian Remains. At Ekbmeem, a large provincial town of Upper Egypt, situate about half ■way between Assiout and Thebes, Prof. Maspero, returning from his annual trip of inspection up tho Nile, has juat found, according to Nature, a hitherto undiscovered and unplundered necropolis of immense extent. As far as has yet been ascertained, the necropolis dates from the Ptolemaic period ; buc, as tha work of exploration proceeds, it will probably be found that it contains more ancient quarters. The riches of this new burial field would meanwhile seem to be almost inexhaustible. Hyg great tombs or catacombs, already opened, have yielded a hundred and twenty mummies, and, within the short space of three hours, ProL Maspero verified the sites of over a hundred moie similar catacombs, all absolutely intact. The necropolis of Ekhmeem, at a rough estimate, cannot contain fewer than five or six thousand embalmed dead. Of these, perhaps not more than twenty per cent will turn out to be of archaeological or historical value ; but the harvest of papyri, jewels, and other funeral treasures cannot fail to be of unprecedented extent. Ekhmeem is the ancient Khemnis — the Panopolis of the Greeks. Its architectural remains are insignificant.

A Cough Remedy. One of our English contemporaries, in reply to an inquirer, recommends a syrup made of ijhe following ingredients fo? coughs and colds : " Take 18 ounces of perfectly sound onions, and after removing vind make several incisions, but not too deep. Boil together with 13.} ounces of moist sugar and 2| ounces of honey in 35 ounces of water, for three-quartera-of-an-hour ; strain, and fill into bottles for U3e. Give one tableapoonful of this mixture (slightly warmed) immediately on attack, and then, according to requirement, five to eight half tableapoonfuls daily. It is said that this recipe was that used by the Zulu Caff res ivhen visiting Europe some two years since, and who suffered muoh from the climate, but invariably reoovered upon its use.

Ail Unexplained Table Land. According to Mr. Im. Thurn, whose travels in British Guiana have recently been published, there is in the far west of that country, or over the Brazilian boundary, where the savanna itself rises 5,000 feet above the sea, a flat table land, the edges of which are more or leas perpendicular cliffs 2,000 feet high. No traveller has ever been round it, So that it may be accessible from the other side, and there is a way, as yet untried, which Mr. Im Thurn believes may prove practicable. The summit of this plateau of Boraima seems to be forest covered, and enough is known of the fauna and flora of the district to make it certain that a naturalist would find himself well rewarded for the ascent. There are traditions of strange isolated tribes that live,* in this inaccessible region.