THE STORY SO FAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 12 (Supplement)

THE STORY SO FAR.

The Pullen family in San Francisco buys a Chinese lacquered chest, and after two visits by Chinese burglars sells it to two Chinamen for 1000 dollars. Immediately a flood of costly gifts come mysteriously to the Pullen home. Mrs. Hamilton, a neighbourhood gossip, links these gifts, with a certain fat man, and Mrs. Pullen ia "cut".by her friends. She entertains herself by 'attempting to manage the love affairs of her pretty daughter, Julia, who loves Sam Carlile, a neighbour youth. Carlile's own mother has ordered him from her home because of his friendship .for the Pullens. A great, diamond comes to the PulJens, following announcement of 650.000 dollars rew;ird for seven siieh stones, offered in China. The stones are believed to have been hidden in such a chest as the Pullens owned. Sam and Julia have quarrelled. As the last chapter ends, he is shoved by somebody into the Pullens' door.

;CHAPTER LVI. The door slammed shut, and Sam was left'alone to face Mrs. Pulleu. , "Who pushed you?" she called, running forward. • .' "My mother," he said, sulkily. He took off his hat and eyed the rug at his feet: "She shoved me all the way over here." "For goodness sake! What for?" "She said I had to apologise," he grumbled, without lifting his gaze. "Why, that's nice," said Mrs. Pullen. f 'Sit down, Sam. Did she want you to apologise for the way ehe's acted?" He took the chair she offered, at the foot of the stair, and turned his hat around between his hands. It isn't for her I'm to apologise. It's for me," he said, unhappily. . "But why? What have you. done?" Mrs. Pullen drew forward one of-the dining room chairs that were lined

against the wall. "Hang it, I haven't done anything," he said. "But she's a woman, and you know how women are. I went home from here feeling pretty bad, and J saw my mother and toldher I wouldn't'come back to this house any more —that you and Julia.didn't want me.. She threw .her , arms around my neck and said how nice it was to have me.obedient again. Then she-asked why you didn't want me, and I. told'her. I told her you were going to. be rich." His mouth drooped, and his voice died away. A clatter from the basement told; that Pullen still was there. "Qo on, Sam," said Mrs. Pullen. "Well, she asked 'me a lot of questions, and I told her about your diamonds. Maybe I shouldn't have told." "It was quite all right," she assured him. "I never can keep secrets myself. . Mr. Pullen often speaks of the way I , tell thinks." " . ' "Women are too many for me," he con- j tinued, lifting his foot and pulling at the • laces of his shoe. "She lit right into j me.. She said I oughtn't to have come j away from here. She said I ought to £ have explained to her that you • never i really go anything, from the fat man, j and she said I let her think Mrs. Hamil- r ton was telling the truth all the time, -\ while her© she's an old harpy—Mrs. Hamilton is, I mean. The way she went on, it sounded just the way she talks to f father." * ' S

His head sank farther forward. "I a think she's stirred up because you're t going to be rich. She said—" he bent so e she could not see his face—"she said if I had an ounce.',of spunk I'd come over I here and propose to Julia right now and make her marry me. Then she grabbed t me by the collar and me!" a His .narrative completed, he sat shaking his head for a time, and then arose. "I'd better go," he said. e Mrs. Pullen held him by the coat. 6 "Is your, mother sorry she treated me so

badly?" "She says it was my fault," he told her. "Now, Sam, don't you worry," said she. "Men make lots of blunders—they are always getting things messed up. But you tell your mother that I quite understand. You tell her that, will you? I'm sorry you didn't make it clear to her before this how scandalous it wasthe way Mrs. Hamilton went on, but I forgive you. I never hold any hard feelings." He blinked, at her in bewilderment, and retreated to the door. Still with a mystified pucker between his eyes he turned the knob and backed out upon the porch. "Good-night," lie said. There was a' rustle on the stairs, and Mrs. Pullen looked up. Julia was coming down, holding a kimona tightly about her. , ,'., ~ "Sam just left," announced the mother. "He says it was all his fault about the trouble, with.Mrs. Carlile and ; the,other ladies. He didn't explain to them what really happened. His mother had to take him by the collar and shove him' over here to confess." ; - "Why," said Julia/ directing a puzzled stare at Mrs. Pullen. "I heard what he said. , I couldn't come down because I was undressed, but I was sitting on the floor upstairs,, listening," "You shouldn't do that," reproved her mother. "It isn't lady-like to eaves drop. But I'm so glad it's ■ settled. Wasn't it just like a man to get us into all this trouble?"

"But Sam didn't say that," protested her daughter. "His mother was still mad at us until she heard we were rich, Now she wants, her eon to marry a rich girl." - . "But, Julia —his own mother said he was to blame!" . . ; "What if she did?" The girl showed irritation. "She helped peddle a lot of things about you, too. Yoii didn't believe in her so much then. And what's more, he-stood up for us. He left his own mother and father because they wanted him to stay away .from us. His mother did; anyway." Pullen's voice came from the kitchen. "What's all. the row?" He entered, dusty-from rummaging in the cellar, and-sat on the arm of a cha"ir. ,;.'•: ' •' ■ ' ' Julia and her mother attempted to answer simultaneously. ■■■■ - "Hey!" he shouted. "One at a time; Your turn, first, Elsie." ' ', ' Mrs. Pullen repeated her version of Sam's message, Julia shaking her head vigorously in denial. "It wasn't any such thing, papa," she said, when Mrs. Pullen paused for breath. "Sam was hurt when mama told him I would marry a rich man, and he went home and told his mother he wouldn't come here any more. Then she hugged and kissed him. She was glad!" • ' ■ She lifted her voice to drown -an attempted interruption by Mrs. Mullen.

"Then Sain told about our getting the two diamonds,, and how we'd have a lot of money. And right away she told him to come over here and marry me! She r did so! And she tried to blame everything on him, and it isn't fair, and I don't think.it's right for you, mama, to swallow everything Mrs. Carlile says when Sam has been such a good friend of ours and left his own home —" She had talked herself out of her chair, and now, breathless, she ran up the stair, her bare feet twinkling and her robe fluttering behind. As her door closed, at the far end of the upper hall, Mrs. Pullen turned to her husband. "That boy Sam is simply driving Julia hysterical," she said, folding her hands upon her lap and heaving her , full bosom. "I think Julia needs a rest." "Yes," he said, absently. "I think she needs a rest. Let's go to bed." He turned out the. living room light, and preceded his wife up the steps.

"I'm almost sorry Sam came, because he tired Julia so/ , Mrs. Pullen told him, as they turned to their own room. "Though goodness knows I'm glad to find out whose fault it was—having thy ladies cut my acquaintance and everything." "Mrs. Hamilton was the one who gossiped," he said. "But Sam ought to have straightened it out. He could have, if he wanted to," she returned,- as she dropped her dress from her shoulders. "Boys are so thoughtless." Thus the matter stood over night, and until Pullen's and Julia's departure for work next morning. At breakfast, the girl was quiet, responding in monosyllables when her mother spoke to her. There were traces about her eyes to indicate that she might have spent some time in tears. To her mother's comment, though/she responded that it was probably the wind that had inflamed her lids, by blowing upon her as she slept. "Does Sam get to the office early?" she asked her father as they prepared to go. "Always there before I am," he said. "I'd like to talk to him," she told him. "I'll ride there with you." Mrs. Pullen was standing beside them. "I wouldn't bother ' with Sam any more," eaid she. "He means well, but he does blunder terribly." She kissed her.husband and daughter good-bye, and waved.to them as the sedan swung around the corner. Then she stood a while, looking up and down the street at the homes of her friends, the light of peace upon her rosy countenance. 'Til give a party," she said to herself, as she re-entered the house. Pullen had taken the new diamond with him, but his wife had carefully preserved the box it came in. This, with ' the container that had held the other j and larger stone, she kept together in j a drawer of her buffet. Before start- ! ing her housework she got them out, j and held them'from her in turn for j admiring inspection as if they still contained the great gems that were bringing fortune to her home. Instead of replacing them, she took them both, with the paper in which they had been wrapped, and carried them upstairs. ! The desk that Pullen had given her j stood by a window of the spare room, j She advanced toward this desk now, and ' was reaching for the handle of one of j the drawers when she espied a pale blue envelope that lay upon the top. On it, in Julia's flowing hand, was Mrs. Pullen's name. She dropped the boxes, and took up the envelope. . Her fingers were unaccountably nervous as ehe tore the flap. There was a note inside, and as her eyes fell upon the opening line; she gave a cry. "My dearest mama," Julia had writ- ! ten. I A little rush of tears blinded Mrs. i Pullen for the moment, and she had to \ dry them with her handkerchief before I she could proceed. i

(To be continued daily.)