COMPLETE STORY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 76, 28 March 1908, Page 13

COMPLETE STORY.

THE PRIVATE TUTOR. .BY HELEN FORREST GRAVES. yon don't think those new books necessary, for the children's French, Mr Aymer?" It was a large, handsome library, with Gothic windows of amber and purple stained glass, and furniture of heavy carved oak—a room whose sombre magnificence carried- one back to ancient ducal days, and Mrs Pelham, standing uy the masstve table as slight and small as a fairy, seemed strangely ont or place. Constance Pelham was scarcely twentyeight, a delicate, rosy little thing, with bright brown hair, and soft, hazel-gray eyes, and a , complexion like snow and roses. Her dress of ruby velvet, relieved by the blood-red flush of garnet jewels, was royal In its splendour, and the sparkle, of rich rings upon her slender fingers caught the light in vivid scintillations as she turned. Mr Aymer lifted his calm, dark eyes toward her, as he sat before his desk, and you might almost have fancied the wealthy widow was afraid of her children's tutor, as the lashes drooped over her crimson cheeks, growing more crimson beneath his cold glance. "Qnite unnecessary, Mrs Pelham." "And I hope Harry gives yon no more trouble about his lessons?"

' "Thank you. Harry is a very good boy ■n0w.",.-.

Mrs Pelham hesitated. . Apparently she wished to say something more, but Philip Aymer was busy once more in writing, and the beautiful widow turned and glided out of the room, her trailing velvet skirts making a soft rustling as she went.

As the door closed softly behind her, Philip Aymer dropped his pen, and leaned back in his chair with a long, bitter sigh, that came near being a groan.

"So beautiful!" he murmured, "so beautiful, and yet so far off! If I only had the- courage to tear myself away from her beguiling presence! Long before Taul Pe!bain met her I loved her—when we were children together in the old Marstonviile woods, and dow.—she is the wealthy queen of society, courted and flattered, and I am her children's tutor."

Philip Aymer gave a short little laugh, as he tossed the black, overshadowing hair away from his broad white forehead. He was handsome, in a dark, gipsy sort of way, with night-black eyes, an olive skin, and straight, rather melancholy features. "Six hundred a year she pays mc for hearing Harry's French verbs, and training little Paul in calisthenics and the alphabet! And I am mad fool enough to linger here, to catch her sweet words and gentle smiles, while my despair grows sharper and more hopeless every day! She Is as far above mc, in her beauty and her wealth, as Venus, the star of the mornins—aud yet I dare to love her!"

So Philip Aymer, the penniless tutor, bent once again over the Latin exercises he was preparing for Harry Pelham, the spoiled child who was so like his beautiful mother.

And Constance went down to her blue-and-gpld furnished boudoir, where little Paul was playing iv the sunshine, tried to embroider, but found the work too tedious by far.

"Mamma," said Harry, at length, leaving Paul's wooden village at the mercy of Paul's own dimpled Angers, and coming abruptly to his mother's side, "mamma, do you think you shall ever marry again?"

She looked at him with her large hazel gray eyes dilated with amused surprise.

"Marry again, Harry? Why, who on earth has been putting that strange idea Into your curly head?"

"It was old nurse, mamma; she says she Is sure you are ia love, because " "Harry!? r -

Mrs relham but the diamond sparkling hand on her son's rosy mouch with a quick movement, and the vivid scarlet overspread her beautiful face like a sudden tide as she looked up and met Mr Aymer's calm, cold glance fixed upon her. He slightly inclined his haughty head.

"I beg your pardon for intruding, Mrs Pelham; I have come for Harry. His lesson hour is already past."

"Ton do not intrude, Mr Aymer. Harry, go to your lessons at once, my child."

Master Harry Pelham found his usually strict teacher strangely absent and lenient that morning. Philip Aymer's mind was far enough away from Latin and French, and elementary geography that day.

"How blind I have been not to have foreseen this!" he mused. "Beautiful and rich, of course she will fall the prey of some designing fortune hunter! One thiug, however, is certain—l shall not stay hero to see her become the bride of any living man—it wpuld kill mc. Oh, Constance, my beautiful! my beloved! how can I tear your Image from my heart? But it must be done!" Aud when Harry's lessons were at last completed Mr Aymer sent to ask If Mre Pelham could receive him for a few minutes. Mrs Pelham was quite disengaged, and would be happy to see Mr Aymer," was the reply brought by the tall footman, who secretly thought himself a great deal better than "the children's teacher." Constance looked up with a sunny smile as he entered the blne-and-gold boudoir. "More trouble with my little rebel, Harry, Mr Aymer?" "No, Mrs Pelham—l am merely here to give you notice of my intention to give up the situation as tutor to your children. I am going to leave Pelham Grange." "Leave the grange, Mr Aymer? Leave mc?" Constance had grown pale as death. "Even so, Mrs Pelham." "But why? What have I unwittingly said or done to offend you?" "Nothing. The only reason I can offer, Mrs Pelham, is the remark your little Harry made to- you this morning, and which I unavoidably overheard. If you marry again, Mrs Pelham, your views aud plans of life 'must all be materially altered, and T feel that I ought not to remain here." •■"I— : I may not marry again." Her hesitation and blushes only strengthened Philip Aymer's purpose. "Constance," he said, almost passionately- "we were playmates once in the days that have gone past. By the memory of those far-off days I adjure you to answer mc, truly—-have you given your heart away?" , ■ . VTes, BhiUp." She spoke, with her slender fingers interlaced, and the deep carmine glowing on her beautiful cheeks. "I thought so," -he murmured, sadly, turning, away., "Good-bye, Constance—l ought,. to ,say Mrs Pelham!"-. , ~*' "'

Bnt she 'aid her hand on his arm with: a touch as Ught as a snowflake. "PhUlp, you have not asked mc to whom, my heart is given." V "I could not, Constance, withoot betraying to you what a mad fool I have been." "Do you care to know?" He turned abruptly upon ner. "Yes; torture - mc as much as yon will. I do care to know." "He is good, and true, and noble," murmured .the lovely young widow, with a quivering lip; "and sometimes I have dared to fancy that—that he loves mc a little." "He were a strange mortal if he did not," ttfld Aymer, bitterly. "Well I wait to hear who he is." She came a Uttle closer to him, and laid her. hand on his shoulder. "Philip, cannot you guess?" "Constance!" A strange flush glowed Uke fire in his cheek—a strange Ught flashed into his eyes. "Surely—surely, Constance, it cannot be. "Philip, it is yon whom I love!" And Philip Aymer, looking down into the shy eyes of his first and • only love, knew that the book of life was opening at a new chapter for him. Of course, people wondered very much that the rich Mrs Pelham could marry her children's tutor; but Philip and Constance were happy, and allowed them to marvel on, quite regardless of local gossip and neighbouring chit-chat. And the remark Master Harry made when he heard of the approaching .wedding was: "I knew mamma was in love with someone, and would rather it should be Mr Aymer than anyone else." CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. VIEWS OF A LEADING WESLEYAN METHODIST. Presiding at the annual aggregate meeting of the Louth Circuit, Mr K. W. Perks, M.P., took the opportunity to denounce the manifesto concerning Christian Socialism, issued by a large number of ministers. I The signatories, he said, wished to assure them that Christian Socialism as they professed it was not the Christian Socialism of distinguished men like John Wesley, Wilberforce, Shaftesbury, Ruskin, and others. These signatories took their place alongside that section of social reformers who said that all methods of production and distribution should become State property. So far as he could make out, this was not the platform of that organisation known as the Methodist Union for Social Service. (Applause) Methodism, of all institutions in the world, had been a social reforming institution. During the last 150 or 200 years who had been a more active social reformer than Wesley? It was very likely indeed that had John Wesley been living to-day he would have been an advanced social reformer. But there was nothing in Wesley's writings from beginning to end to imply that he was opposed to the ownership of private property, or that he wished to make everyoue in this country a State employee, that he did not wish people to enjoy the fruits of their own industry, or that he meant to treat a man who was a thriftless wastrel on the same basis as a man who was a hard-working, industrious citizen. Quite the reverse. Wesley lived at a time when France was undergoing the throes preliminary to the rent Revolution, and one of the great works which Methodism accomplished at the end-of the eighteenth century, and at the beginning of the last century, was that it saved England from the revolutionary dangers and terrible social horrors which passed through France under the inspiration of that movement, which was materialistic and atheistic. He would venture to say that a man who propounded such theories as those contained in the manifesto diminished his power for good as a minister of the Gospel. Let them not be misled or pay any attention because these men would write "Reverend" before their names; when they dealt with questions of finance, or economics, or politics, they stood absolutely on the same level as the man In the street or the man in the pew. (Applause.) They said they had arrived at these conclusions from a study of the Scriptures; he said their study of the Scriptures must have been extremely cursory. He did not believe there could be found in any of our Lord's teaching anything to imply that the whole of the property of the world of these days ought to be in the ownership of the community, and not the property of individuals. The real basis of true Christian Socialism was the individual conversion and reform of the mau, who was the unit of the State; and that man would be able to permeate Society around him, and all institutions of trade and public life with which he might be associated, with those principles of charity, justice, love, and equality of opportunity, which they aU beUeved were the very foundation of a truly Christian and progressive community. (Applause.) If men were all to be treated not Uke human beings, not like responsible creatures; if everybody was to be treated ns a sort of Stateowned product, to be guided by the State, inspected -ay the State, made to work by the State, and if every Institution of our country, as these hundred ministers seemed to suggest, were to become a department of the State, they were paving the way for one of the most vile bits of despotism and curtailment of human liberty the world had ever seen. (Applause.) Thank God, there would be resolute, powerful, and Intellectual bands of Christian men and women who would do their very utmost upon many and many a platform in this land to rescue our country from such a vile bit of despotic tyranny as these one hundred gentlemen were blindly endeavouring to force upon their fellow-creatures. And thus, as Methodism had its work to do at the beginning of the last century in shielding the democracy of this country from the dangers of the great French Revolutionary movement, so he honestly believed that It would be the duty of the Methodist Church to present to the people a free Christianity and a form of religious life which would be a barrier against this inroad of secularism, of Infidelity, aud of .Socialism. (Applause.)