IN THE SHADOW.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2215, 18 September 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

IN THE SHADOW.

"But you know," said K^ita Howard, with an n\r of saucy frankness th tt would have be<>M intolerable insolence in .my one le^s piquanrly be lutiful than herself, " you're only the village schoolmaster, Mr Fairgrove ! ' She was sitting on a boulder of rock, with tho branches of the old apple trep making a tent of shade around her, and the daisies and clover blossoms rismy ut> around hpr white draperies. Very fiit\ with hair like spun gold, and deep blue eves, she looked more like some delicite piece of tinted marble th in actual flesh and blood, and the long lashe* droop»l over her cheeks as she played with the kn it of blue ribbon on the side of her wide-brimmed straw hit, while one foot, encased in the prettiest of kid boots, lay nestling in the grass. For if there was anything in the world th.it Kate Howard was proud of, it was her aristocraticallyshaped little foot. Mr Fail grove stood leaning asrainst the rustic bars with folded arm-* — <i till finelooking man of six or .seven and twenty. "Yes," he said quickly, " I !*»"" I an only the village schoolm ist>r, but whit of that ? Am L never to advance- .my farther in the woild, or does the fa< t deb-ir in? from aspiring t > .my of the genthr fe"l ings of hum inity.'' " No," said Kate, " but village schoolmastcis can't give tlieir brides hi own jstone houses nnd carnages and casluner" bhawla, and those are i)rcoii,olv the things tli.it an- cs^'utuil to my happiness." " lvate — aie you in earnest" "01 course 1 am in earnest, Mr Fairgro^e ; w liy shouldn't I be ?" " Do you mean that you refuse m ? ' Kate Howard lifted her blue, lnnm i eyes, full ot scornful lie-uty, and said " Mr Fait giove, this has beeu a delight ful summer, but the idyl mmt stop just

here. I have been too luxuriously reared to end my career by marrying a poor man." " But I love you, Kate !" broke from his lips in a sort of anguished cry. " You'll forget me in six months. You must see that Kate Howard never could marry a country schoolmaster. Let us part friends— and now good-bye !" She dismissed him with the imperial air of a queen breaking up an unpalatable audience, and sat there among the daisies and red clover long after he had gone upon his way. Sat there, listening mechanically to the song of the robin and watching the tide of sunshine ripple over the grass about her feet. "I did like him a little,'* she said, half-aloud, as she rose up finally, "and if he had only been rich — but what nonsense ! I thought I was too practical to spend my time in foolish dreams like this !" And Kate Howard strolled back to the house — the antiquely-built farm-house where she was getting back the roses that a season in New York had temporarily stolen from her cheeks. A beauty, a belle, she valued herself at her highest market quotation, and had no idea of sacrificing herself on any altar that was not inlaid with gold. Herbert Fairgrove walked until midnight in the old woods, asking himself what he had done that thus his life was blighted. " I will live this down !" he muttered to himself. "I will rise above it — but oh, if she had only given me a word of hope !" The next day he went to take charge of a school in Vermont — and when he returned in the autumn time, Kate Howard and the loses had vanished. It was several years subsequent to the scene under the apple boughs that Montague Dale asked Mr Fairgrove a leading question : " Why is it that you have never married, Herbert?" Fairgrove was sauntering down Broadway arm-in-arm with his friend, a 11 village schoolmaster" no longer, but a New York lawyer, brilliantly successful in his profession. He smiled. "I was once in love, Dale," Fairgrove answered, with a dreamy abstractedness, "and I think I shall be forever." "Is she dead?" "No !" "I beg your pardon, my dear fellow ; I did not dieain that I was treading upon such dangerous ground." "There is no mystery about it, Montague. I did love her, but she was ambitious, as her beauty gave her every riylit to be, and that was in my chrysalis days, before Fortune's sunbeams had developi'd the butterfly wings !" " And what has become of her?" " I have ne\er been able to learn. She would have graced the brightest position the world has to give.' 1 " Would you like to meet her again ? ' " Haully. I could not bear to see her, and know that she lus passed utterly beyond my sphere. All this happened years ago, yet I love her and long for her still ' "You always were a single-hearted fellow," said Dale, looking with a sort of admiration on his friend's noble, thoughtful face. " But here we are, opposite the St. Al bans Club- House. Will you come in ?" "Not this afternoon, thank you; I ha\e some errands further on." He walked up Broadway, turning into a side street and pausing at a boot-and-shoestore. " Are those boots done ?" he asked, with a e;ood-humoured nod to the knight of last and leather, as he sat down at the counter. " Yes, sir, I expect 'em in every minute — please to wait just a second, sir.'* "All ritrht !" And Mr Fair<?rove took up the evening newspaper and began to id. nice carelessly up and down its columns. " Here's them shoes as was left to be mended," observed u leather-aproned youth, lisinir out of a trap-door like a demon on '.he staire, " and if they're sent to be mended many more times there won't be much v' the 'nyinal material left to woi k on.' 1 Fairgrovp ylan^ed mechanically at the boots. They we'-e worn and .shabby, with patches on either side, and .shaped to a ! foot that was .scarcely larger thin a | ohiid'-. " We don't generally do this kind of work, "-ir," observed the man, as he saw Fairjrrove's irl nice : " but it's for a young 'oman as binds shoos for us, and has pretty hard work to <ret alonj, because of <i bedliddeu father.'' "Very laudable, I'm sure," said Fairirrove, carel< s^ly, a-, he a^ain reverted to the newspiper. He hid scircely more than re iched th*± middle of the second (oluinn when he heard a voice, sweet and low, and stransjely familiar in its a' cents. " Are the boots mended ? Oh, th. ink you, >ir! I hive brought the bundle of woik, and " She stopped sudden'y, recoiling apaceortv\o, for Kate Howard had tccoguised Herbert Fairgrove. As beautiful as ever, while the red cheeks, a trifle paler and less dimpled than of yore, were all that betrajed the cruel waste of time and trouble. Herbert rose and shook both her hands in bis. "You rememoer me, Kate?" "Ob, MrFangiove, I could not blame you if you had forgotten me!" she replied. '" Your boots are done, sir," said the shoemaker, olh'ciou^ly interposing, and Fairgrove sit quietly waiting until the last cotucr had tiansacted her whispered business, and leaned a bundle of tresh woik. Then he reached out his hands for it. " Let me carry it for yon, Kate !" " Y'»u don't know wii it a p"or place I live in now. Mr Fuririove " " And I don t caie (live me the parcel. Kate !" She obeyed, hut the colour went and came in painful flushes, on her cheeks, as she walked beside him. " You are poor. Kate?" he asked, after a moment's silence. " Very !"' " And your husband ?" " I am not maincd," she answered in a low tone "Then. Kate I have come back to you just in tune I am no longer a \ lllage sohoolmast'ii '• Do not icmind me of my airogant folly," she a ik 1 . sh^htiv wincing. " But, on tiie ( onti ir\," lie went on. "I have £iown ik-li <m 1 pios|>e!ous. Kate, will jou l>t me liy iiiv wealth and fame at your feet once more?" -,i » stopped and looked with wistful ciV .'iy nito his face. "Do you love ,n s id, llerhe.it, or is it only pity that » jour w ords?" liu_\'" he uh^pered, so low that \' Is floated into her senses on the ios-d)le tide of sound, "I have i 'd*td to love \, on since we parted 'i > ,w old apple tiee "' \ ■{ the httle hoots ne\er came back ; • !>• pitched a ij moie. and the hungry lu-irts «.ie full, and Kate Howard had her can rue and hei cashmeie shawls after all. IVihap-sh" didn't deserve it, but do v\ -ill mt our deserts in this world - — New Yoi k Xev\s.

Ski o\ i> 10 \o\k -One J\ML- \Y\tit-. L'oneially known as "Tin Herd Lulilie, ' the champion <linu"!iK ph\pr of the Morld, purposes 1. avin.' Horn*' at the end of next month on a v sit t o Australia -nid \V U Zealand. \V\lio thou^lj ttinn up in ye^ -, is still a m^ojous plajer a,<<>\ expert expai.eae ot the gr^it Scotch game.