AT BEAUTY'S BAR

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 274, 18 November 1910, Page 8

AT BEAUTY'S BAR

CHAPTER XXXV. . "Now," said .Mi„s Arabella to Mrs. J Vinney'a red-haired daughter, "here's ' faome nice jelly and some chicken broth for that poor creature, and I hope he'll i>e abie to eat it." "Weil, you know, mum," returned that damsel, "if he can't peat it, I .can, you know, mum." Miss Arabella heard this audacious remark with uplifted eyes and hands of amazement, but the girl, herself nothing moved, carried off the viands in a gloating manner suggestive of pickings and tastings by the way. The jelly was half demolished and the broth half spilled When she reached her mother's, and placed the remainder on ihe counter with a jerk of self-denial. 'There, mother, that's for the sick man, and if he can't eat it, you're to give it to mo." ' "And who", said 'that?" asked Mrs. "Vinney, in a snappish tone. "Is there nobody 'hen- .but 3'ou, I wonder?" "Miss 'Bella said it, and Miss Diana herself called downstairs to say very particular I -was-to have it." -.s'she embellished her story with this new lib, Miss Vinney passed'her finger absently over the jelly glass, and abstracted _ shaking morsel that particularly tempted heT. Mrs. Vinney instantly snatched at her 'hand, but failed to catch the quivering lump, which fell prone in the dust. Mother and daughter both stooped for it, but the latter, .being more agile, seized, swallowed it, and immediately Ibol'ted out of the shop.----7 Mrs._ Vinney sat down and burst into tears. "To think how I've striven, early and rate, to bring up my children—me, a poor widder, and now to be served like ■Chis!, Sbete a dreadful girl, is Matilda, "exactly- like her father—the very pattern of him. She'll kill mc, "she will" and would he if he could have done it. The times and times I've said to him, :" You'll 'be the death of mc!" And no Word .could be. truer, only he died himBetf. first. -Ohj dear, what a world this "is~ tfor~we~poor women!" Here Mrs. Vinney took up the spoon in the broth basin and looked at it. and looked at-herself in-it* I B'pose."-" - I And, .aighdng deeply, she exalm—led Jher countenance" "within it with" much' interest, and ended by. applying the con-vex-side to her nose, which was red and _ot. --Apparently'it cooled that sensitive organ, "for she placed it first on one side end then ion the ofcb'er gxatefujlyi "1 suppose, the broth is cold." As if to test. this.belief, she drew the ibasin nearcT,:'.aTid-ghxncing-up;.the stair* to be sure that no one was looking on, she swallowed two spoonfuls rapidly, tlen drawing the jelly quickly toward her, she tried if that were cold also, gulping down the shaking lumps with a facility and speed that distanced Miss Matilda. "Oh, mother!" cried that pattern of Jier father, who, with her nose glued to the shop window, had viewed the whole proceeding, "that's a lot more'n I took! _Ie and Polly Tickle has been watch—lg you all the while." Mrs. Vinney had "such a. turn" that she had scarcely presence of mind left to rush out. .upon: hef daughter an inflict summary punishment upon her head end. ears, after w/hic,h she consigned her '.to' a small cellar. Where she kept coal, a cask of herrings, another of sugar, and v, barrel of soft soap. then, with orgisf desires in her heart regarding the other little witness, who. •would po all over the village to tell the tale, Mrs. Vinney mounted the stairs to the invalid's room in a snappish and aggressive mood. "Such a fuss over a poor idiot that don't know Jelly from soap. Here's something for you," she said, •flinging Jierself with a heavy flop into a chair by the bedside. "I dare say it's good, but I don't know. Us poor folk don't o-et eu-h things. You had better eat it, or Miss Diana will be cross." The man moaned, and looked at her in a confused way. "Why doesn't Miss Moberley remain !With mc?" he asked. "Where is she?" "Well, I never," answered Mrs. Vinney. "Ain't I good enough for you? Ain't Miss Mo'berly got nothing .better to do than wait upon a poor vagabond idiot like you? She's home ill. You frightened her. I—ie won't come near you again jup-st yet, I reckon." A flush of anger passed over the man's faoo, a flash came into his heavy eyes, but anger was beyond his strength, and the words he strove to utter were undistinguishable. "What do you say?" asked Mrs. Vinney. "That you ain't a idiot? Then you were a little while ago, 1 can tell you, and you ought to be on your knees this minute in t_ankf_lness that your poor muddled brain is a bit clearer. Here for ' ever so long you've .been running the village in ragged craziness, offering beans for sale—you, who never had a bean, or the ghost of one. And if it hadn't been for Miss Diana, you'd ha,', been put in jail, but she took compassion 'on you, and lodged you J 'long with . mc, where you've been took care of, I can tell you, and given trouble enough, and she is paying for all. like a lady as she is. And all this while nobody knowed who you Viere, nor where you came from. I s'poso ' : you ye got sense enough now to say who you belong to?" an^ C er^W ,m^ te l »"« her no ' asked !%■ ". a great eS °rt,._e gave j 3 *°f ater - - Mrs. Vinney t^ E^r^^^tl-m.wit_ evr, 'oelin™ °'+ ihad "Beved her evn .felmgs at the expense of another,' -np ! • now inclined' to.be amiable v w it you'want'to" know?"-she »!<,. • naing over him to catch his faint _ord_

BY ROGER K. WENLEIGH. Author of "Friends and Rivals," "An Irresistible Temptation," "A Prolonged Truce," eto.

"How long have I been in this village ?" he asked, with a haggard stare. "All the summer," returned Mrs. Vinney vaguely. "You came one morning permisc'us, walking, and that mistiness in your head that the constable gave you up, and he's a clever man, and has ringed the bells here five-and-forty years, man and boy. So it wasn't the you made—and they were plenty—that could make him addle-pated; and addled he was whenever he tried to ring any sense out of you. You wanted somebody—you didn't know who—and you never have knowed who since." "And no one knows who I am?" asked the man, flushed and eager. "Not even Miss Moberly." "In course not. How should she, poor dear? A 'speetable young lady like her, visited by the gentry, and a fine book writer, too? How should she know a poor vagabond like you, 'hollering beans, and bagging ha'pence when you could get 'cm? But she's ibeen very good to you, j'oung man," continued Mr 3. Vinney, in a preaching voice; "always paid mc punctooal, and many a shillin' over—that you ought to build a statue to ncr with your own hands." "It's a strange story," murmured the sick man. "Kind to mc, and not knowing "She knew you were a poor, bewildered critter, wanting help, and I was a widder glad to earn " 'Here the man interrupted her by '•*• - •ing his hot hand on her arm, ana than pointing to his bandaged forehead. His touch was so burning, his look so strange, that Mrs. Vinney started, and began to bawl to him by way of making him understand more clearly. "Lord .bless the man," she said. "He don't know nothing—not even how he broke his own addled head. You were out selling beans, .you, know"—bawling very loud.-to himr-"beans that you never had, and you • follered Mr. Moberly— cousin to Miss Diana— v/fio come from ever so far to see her " "Cousin!" he interposed excitedly. "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Vinney snappishly. "Cousin, and the only relation she has, 'cept a brother, who she's been looking for these ten year*,, out who don't come. And to give ye a bit of my mind, I don't think he will come. It ain't like her to be 'loving and longing, and watching for an unnatural relation, who don't give no more thought to her than you did when you was a idiot. I tell ye what it is. I think her ibrother is like your bean's—'always talked oi, and axed for, and never seen." Her victim groaned feebly, and closed his eyes as if in pain. \ "Always loving, always watching," he murmured, "and for such a brother! Oh, Heaven, grant mc strength to hide the truth!" Mrs. Vinney did not heed him. She was warming now to her story, and felt in a mood to be graphic and circumstantial. "Well," she continued, "Mr. Moberly was driving home, and gets out of his trap to pick up his pocket-book, with all his money, which he'd let fall, and then you jumped, in, and went off over the fields like a rampant fire engine, hollering, 'Beans!' as if you were born to be a beanstick. You drove right down over a ploughed- field, when the trap went bang agin' the plough, overset the two men, horses flying, smashed the carriage" to bits, and threw you out upon a heap of tiles, which Mr. Clay's men had just carted in for drains. That's how it happened, exactly. I heard all the story from Ben, the ploughboy. Come, now, will ye eat this jelly or not, or do ye mean to keep mc here all day ?" The invalid permitted her to cast the jelly into his mouth without uttering an expostulation; then he thanked her— poor man? —and said, meekly, he should like to see the vicar; would she send for him, and, meanwhile, would she leave him alone—quite alone ? "So I've done him good, or he wouldn't ask for the parson," said Mrs. Vinney to herself. Yet she retired to obey his behest with a misgiving countenance. Left alone, the poor wanderer tried to raise himself in his bed in a kneeling position, but his weakness was too great. He fell back exhausted. An attitude of prayer thus denied him. he lifted his eyes to heaven and breathed forth, in silent utterings, the anguish of a broken spirit. Under the calming influence of this outpouring of his sorrow, the fever spot on his cheek ceased to glow, tears refreshed him, and the sharp torture of thought became cooler and clearer. "My duty is plain," he murmured softly. I must keep this secret. Poor Diana 1 Why should I grieve her? She, who has watched for a wretched brother so long, hoping to see him return in joy, how could she bear the truth? No; better she should never know —never hear that brother's name. I will spare her. I will die, and not tell her. Thank Heaven, I am sure to die, and the poor vagabond will lie down in the dust, unknown and forgotten. 'All the summer,' the woman sa id—' a ll the summer in ragged craziness,' and must have starved but for her. Shall I return her compassion with a stab? Shall I say, "This brother for:whom you have watched and waited is -' No—no! Heaven forbid I should be so cruel! I rejoice she guesses nothing, and my words were too broken, too incoherent, when she was here, to reach her sense. I am very weak, but peace seems to wrap mc about silently as with folded wings. I can forgive him now. I shall meet Alice again—he'has not parted us forever." (To be continued daily.)