SERIAL STORY.

Oxford Observer, Volume 1, Issue VII, 28 September 1889, Page 3

SERIAL STORY.

Specially written for ' The Observer.' LA L . ". Yes, Sir, and we call her ' Lai.' " "Pet name? Why yes, so 'tis, Sir. Her proper name is Alice. It was the name of a little sister of mine, and we always called her Lai." " What ! You think it uncommon do you ? Ah, well ; she was rather an uncommon girl, so maybe the name suited her." " You would like to hear about her, ay? Well then let us stroll a bit through the bush, and I'll tell you a little about her." The speaker was a pleasant-looking old man I met at a picnic, and we had settled into a chat m the way people do at such times and places. A pretty little girl with dark eyes and fair curly hair was m his company, and he called her Lai. " When I was young," he began, " we lived m Victoria, and my mother died there. Ah I That's a sad loss to a family. I was about twenty at the time, and sister Susan two years younger. There was another boy a good deal younger than we were. Well, father, he fretted a bit after mother died, and then he took to drinking, and times were pretty bad with us for a while. Susan hard, poor girl, and tried her best to keep things going. She stood m place to us all as far as she could. But things seemed just going from bad to worse, when, all of a sudden father pulled up like. He left off drinking, and took to work again, and then, about a year after mother died, he brought home another wife." " Yes, Sir ; a little young thing. She was only a year or so older than Susan. Somehow Susan took to her at once, and the two girls got on better together than you'd tliink." " I didn't see much of her, for I was away from home doing contract fencing on a big run most of the time she lived after she was father's wife." " Yes, she died about two years afterwards, and left a little daughter a few months old for father and Susan to love and take care 01. I was told that just at the last she gave the little one into Susan's arms, and said, ' 0, Susan, be a mother to Lai.' And if ever one woman m the world acted a mother's part to another's child, Susan did to our little sister. Why, that baby was her first thought morning, noon, and night, and maybe that's how she didn't notice ajs soon as I did how old and broken-up like our father was getting day by day — the loss of his young wife seemed to have taken all his life away. One day he said, ' Sam, I'm tired of this place; suppose we sell out, and go to New Zealand ; I'd like to clear out before thehotweather comes, if you and Susan are willing.' Well, as it happened, I was willing, for just then I'd had a disappointment myself, and didn't care how far I went away from Victoria." " Aye, yes of course there was a woman m it. You know something of that yourself, Sir, perhaps." "And so it was settled, and m less than a year we were started on a dairy farm m Auckland. There father rallied a bit, and Lai came on famously — a merry, chatting little thing she was, just the light of the old man's life, and his joy and pride." "In those days Susan was a goodlooking woman, a bit sharp m the nose (and temper, perhaps) ; but there, where's the woman m the world without one fault, and Susan was main good at heart. More than one well-to-do settle^ came hanging round our place after Susan, but she gave them all to understand it was 'no go.' ' I mean

to stay single,' said she, ' and take care of Lai. I can't leave her, and I won't take her to another man's home, where, after a while, she'll be m the way,' as like as not.' " " When Lai was about seven years years old, my father died, and the little one fretted about him most amazing for so young a child. Susan and I were at our wits' ends to comfort her. ' The child has strong feeling,' says Susan, ' I'm sure I hope she won't grow up as pretty as her mother was, or I shall have my work cut out for me with her.' " (To be continued.)