"DOT:"

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3079, 9 April 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

"DOT:"

A TYPICAL FICTION. By "TriAT .Singular Anomaly, ■rnE Lady Novelist." Charter I. I am a plain, uninteresting, ugly little duffer, and it is my charming sistor which has all the good looks and sharp wits of tho family. Her naino is Caroline, and mine Dorothy—or roduced to their lowest mathematical terms, Dot and Carry. We are the greatest contrast to one another. She has all the attributes of a heroine ; I have none, unless one count being orthodoxly slangy, inaccurate, and ingrammatical (in which I have a good old try to follow tho best old models). But the only thing where I really score is with my singing— I sing better than Patti, and Carry don't. This, however, is only a vocal score.

AVe are the daughters of Dr. Domino, vicar of the Diocese and liural Canon; and we are all very badly off, especially poor little me, who is always very shabbily dressed. But, with these promises, I am forced to leave out a fow pages, and you will find me next in tho premises of our rich neighbour, Lord Doncaster St. Leger (eldest son of Sir Derby Epsom, and heir to the Knighthood), whore I am discovered in a picture and original situation in

Chapter IV. It is like this. While in my favourite perch on top of our garden wall, I have been tempted by the umbrageous shade of one of Lord Doncaster's stately, ancestral cherry trees, and without a moment's thought have swung myself, athletically, among its branches. Having eaten so many cherries that there is a veritablo shingle of cherry stones beneath the tree, quite hiding the luxuriant vegetation of "Mother Earth," I stop because I cannot eat any moro. From the very fullness of joy, into soDg I burst. " Cherry Eipo " is, of course, the appropriate refrain, and soon my rich, mezzo-contralto is piercing through the wood . . . when suddenly ... my voice freezes in my throat . . . for Lord Doncaster St. Leger himself is coming towards me in a delicious suit of light grey ! If it had not been for those cherries ... I might have es-

caped . . . As it is . . .1 cannot movo, I know ... I am lost ... or, rather, found! " Oh, do not— do not cease your song," he observes, in peculiarly earnest accents, pausing beneath me. " Oh, Miss Dot—oh, oh!—I am only too pleased to have my preserves poached on by you—too happy, too proud, too thankful !" We know him pretty well; but we always thought it was Carry, so I feel I ought not to encourage him.

"I am not a poacher." I answer indignantly —" at all events, not of anything worse than eggs on toast, for papa's breakfast; as for your preserves, it is absurd to talk about them while the fruit is still on the tree. But I am up a treo —and 1 own it."

*' You might own it," he murmurs meaningly, " and all the timber on the estate," (there is a peculiar timbre in his voice), " and every stick in my possession—talking of which last, here's my umbrella ; use it like a parachute, to come down %vith."

"With yon there?" I scream, modestly. " I should think so." ''Very well," he answers, laconically. "If you dismiss me, of course I must go- I will sond the domestics with the fire-escape. But (since it is to be ' good-bye for ever') I will, at least, carry away with me some momento of you! "

Ho stoops, and deliberately fills his pockets with the cherry-stones, which as he Tightly guesses have been in my mouth. When his pockets are full, he fills his hat. Then he takes off his boots and fills them. There is no surprise in his faco at the quantity I have eaten at one sitting. He knows my weaknesses, it seems. When he rises, in his stocking feet, his face is pale and stem. My heart smites me. His whole sole is bear to me—or would be, but for his socks. I call him back.

" You needn't go," I say, gently, Just open your brolly, and pretend it's raining cats and dogs. There, that's first-class. Now, one—two— three "

And it is done! lam on the ground by Lord Doncaster St. Leger's side. " Dot," he says, gravely, " we'll still pretend it's raining; and, as you haven't an umbrella — come under mine !"

I do so. His beautiful sleevelinks, trembling in the sunlight, show his emotion. <! Between you and I," he continues, impressively, " I had determined to swallow all these stones, o? which you have swallowed the rest. It would have been a sweet, a fitting, an original death. And death I must have at any price—or you ! " " Oh, / can't swallow that," I answer, archly. " That would have been a choke ! " " You will make me do it yet, I HPe," he says, gloomily. " Listen ! You perched on my ancestral cherry tree of your own sweet will. Are you willing to be grafted permanently upon an elder—a very much elder—tree: the genealogical tree of the house of Epsom St. Leger 1"

In tho end I am. But I have been coerced into cutting out the rest of the chapter—which has only just begun.

Chapter V.

I know there would be 'ructions at home—and there is. Carry has swooned—or at least feinted —and retired to her room with the salvolatile. The Vicar, who has just returned from work in the cemetery, takes her side. The bare prospect of the match makes the old canon explode. The end of it is that Lord Doncaster St. Legcr calls in the evening nnd does a little judicious bullying. And so we are

engaged. The verdict of the county is that I am an artful little card ; but that goes without saying. We ugly little heroines are always a little naive.

Chapter XIII.

Many chapters have been spent in wedding preparations and pretty quarrelling between we two lovers, whose engagement has been several times on the very verge of being broken off. It is bitter indeed to cut out so much originality ; and it is njt my doing that we now find ourselves sitting on the Vicar's lawn (I do not mean my father's surplice) on the afternoon before the wedding. By we, I mean Lord Doncaster,Major Barry de Brabazon (the best man—and such a humourist !) and me. Carrie has mysteriously departed to stay with friends in town. It is a sweet sweltering, soft, sad December afternoon. The men are toying with rich, fragrant, scented cigars, and tall, full, effervescent tumblers.

" Give us some more, Donk," says the Mayor, funnily, holding out his empty glass and winking at me ; " one swallow don't make a summer drink."

Lord Doncaster complies in silence. He is odiously silent to-day. Barry de Brabazon continues spinning me regimental yarns.

" Ah. but we had rare times in Zultiland !" he says, regretfully.

" I'll never forget when old Donk, here, championed that there Zulu princess, and cut off the prince's head with the broad-sword. You wouldn't think it, to look at him, would you, Miss Domino ? And she wasn't a stunner, Donkey, my boy—hey ! Oh, dear, no ? Not by no means !" My St. Leger exhibits a gesture of impatience, and remarks that it is not the time for jokes of the broadsword. " That was when you where fighting the Mahdi, I suppose ?" I ask, ingenuously, to change the subject. " Oh, dear no : the Ameer. It was when old Donk won his V.C. She pinned it round his neck, for, of course, he got it on the spot from Wolseley, who was in command of the rear vanguard, and saw the incident. But what's up with the clear old boy 1 He looks downcust—in fact, I never saw a Downcaster !" My lord is tearing out his moustache by handfuls. Iu fi sjj he is annoyed. " Ah," says Barry do Brabazon, feelingly, "lie don't lifc.- being reminded of the good old tiuiis. Yet, [ assure you, Miss D jniino, she was nothing—wasn't the little clarkie—to the Sardinian widow. Now, you don't mean to fcs.ill me ho has never told you about, the Sardinian widow —and the duel! Well, that is a good 'un !" " Dot, will you sing something 1" abruptly interposes St. Leger, in an impossible tone. His face is set and trembling. " I don't mind having a try," say I, adorably ; and promptly begin to sing him the songs of Araby (which as I have to stop to explain to the Major, does not mean Arabi Pasha),

unci likewise of far Cashmere (which is appropriate, in view of my bridal dress). When at last I stop, De Brabazon says, approvingly: " Bravo! I never heard a better mezzo-contralto. Let's see—it was an alto-prof undo that the little Sardinian had, wasn't it Donk ?" But Lord Doncaster St. Leger has marched off, with a wicked word in the remaining shreds of his moustache. " Poor old chap ! it was always a sore point; we used to call her 'Sardines and tin ' in the regiment, because she was rich," says Barry de Brabazon to me. " His choler's rising; he's gone to pitch into his stud groom !" Chapter XVII. I have left out the great scene between Lord Doncaster and lin res the Sardinian widow. I have omitted my vow (in six j pages) that I will never marry him unless he tells all.

I have exercised his gloomy reference to the fatal cherrystones, which he last night rattled ominously in his coat-tail pockets, and which decided the question. Thus three thrilling chapters are ruthlessly annulled, and we are already at the altar. "It will soon be round your neck," says profane (but witty) Barry de Brabazon. My father is taking the ceremony which leads the Major to joke (deliciously) about Doncaster's once more seeking a bubble reputation at the Canon's mouth. My uncle, Sir Hammond Bacon, Bart., is performing a service of a different kind, by giving me away. Suddenly a voice clear as a clarion piercing as death fatal as the grave awakes the echoes of the quiet, picturesque, ivy-clad, village church — " I FORBID THE BANNS ! " The strong man at my side shivers

like a shivered oak The best man mutters: "Tinned Sardines— as I am a Guardsman off guard!" Their swords crash upon the old stone floor They are both in

full uniform We were being married with military honours. I look wildly round One glance is enough I know the woman who has forbidden the banns

—know her by her forbidding aspect. It is tho Sardinian widow 1 faint away !

Chapter XVIII. I have come to myself Lord Doncaster St. Leger is be-iding over me His hair is grey though not with years. "It was all a lie—a fiction—a make-up!" he is whispering hoarsely. I learn it all by degrees. My amiable sister, Carry, had somehow possessed herself of a photograph of the Sardinian person (a positively hideous creature, and quite old). Her patent scheme of revenge wHI at once bo patent to all. She is now in a convent. "So you will marry me now, dearest?" says Lord Doncaster, pressingly. " I assure you that the person is dead. Not, however, that there was ever anything in it." " Never ! " cries his friend through the keyhole. "Never, as we're officers and gentlemen."

Now is my- time for revenge. "Marry you— now!" I say majestically. " How dare you ask it i Don't you know that we are not half-way through our story yet ? No ; I will not marry you yet. I cannot marry you in the middle of Volume 11. Throw up your title. Gro to Australia, and dig for gold ; turn East-eud Missionary ; get shipwrecked on a desert island ; anything you like, so long as you don't come back till the last chapter. Meanwhile I, for my part, will fall into a decline, or get kidnapped by my wicked uncle, Sir Hammond Bacon, the bad Bart. And you shall have the rescuing ot me. Good-bye! Farewell! Adieu—till the end of Volume 111. We'll marry then, if you like !"

Chapter XLVIII. And we do. But it is a double wedding. For Carry has returned sufficiently repentant, in time to take the name of that simple soldier, Barry do Brabazon—and not, I hope, in vain.