MISS HURST ON HOLIDAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 17, 20 January 1940, Page 9 (Supplement)

MISS HURST ON HOLIDAY

{Continued from last week.)

"What do you mean?" she said, turning and swimming away from inc. "Why I Oil, look I" For a minute I thought she'd gone crazy, and then I saw; it was Freddy — the horrible, übiquitous Freddy. He was on the rock by the river bank simply tearing off his >coat. "Hold up!" he shouted, "I'm coming!" "Go back!" shouted Miss Hurst and I in one voice, although we were quarrelling. For, of course, we were thinking of his gas. "Likely, isn't it?" said Freddy— hie eyes blazing furiously, and his face was quite white. In another instant he was swimming towards us as well as he could, but his strokes were frightfully weak. "Can you manage, kid?" he panted to me, and he made straight for Miss Hurst just as she threw up her liauds and gave a little try.

Whatever did it all mean? She was within wading distance of the bank by that time, as I knew; certainly she'd got some weeds in her hand, but—had she picked them! Also, why on earth did she lie so still when Freddy had hauled her on to the bank —or } when he thought he had, I mean, for *;hc'd mannged most of it herself? It was all a mystery to me as I floundered after them as soon as I'd righted the boat; and then: "Darling, are you all right now?" said Freddy, but he w.ls not speaking to inc!

"I'll go for some brandy," I said suddenly, not that I knew which of them it was for, but because I wanted to get away.

"Xo, yon won't; Freddie shall," said Miss Hurst, in such a regular mistressy way that I had to let him; and, when he had gone, she turned to me. "Xow, look here. Bronda, I —Oh, you must—You must not, I mean, let him know that—it was—

just camouflage! Of course I could have managed alone, but —lie's never heard of Guides or—swimming in clothes for fun, or— Men are so oldfashioned, and—they have to "be humoured, and—"

"Was that why von clutched weeds, and pretended to faint V X said, for I hadn't finished quarrelling yet.

"Yet*—it was," said Miss Hurst# with a jerk, "and—and—if you make it diflicult for me—for us—" And quite suddenly a tear rolled down her nose; it was not a drip of water, though her hair was wet; it was a real tear, and X knew that. "I say," I said suddenly, and I forgot that she'd ever l>een a mistress. "Here, come on, lot's rae* to the house or we'll he shivering/' And I took her hand just as though she'd I>eeii 0110 of the kiddies, and—somehow the quarrel was, over, and I understood.

"You're a line (butter-fingers," said Freddy to 2110 when I cam© down half an hour later and found him pacing the hall like a tiger. "Lucky that you've not killed Gert —Miss Hurst. How ever did it happen? I saw the overturned boat as X came along looking for— Caught in the I weeds, too—how you could have risked— If I hadn't been near—" | And ho groaned and clenched his hand/; as he stared expectantly behind me.

"The boat's awfully light," I said, as contritely as I could. "Yes I saw that she was holding weeds and . . .

It was a good thing that you were there, Freddy/' I finished.

Everything was settled by lunch time, and they were engaged. I'd -thought, since the morning, of course, that it would happen, and that's all there is to say about it except just one thing. It's what Gertrude—Miss Hurst, you know—said to me that night. She can:a into my room while I was brushing my hair and she stood behind me a minute and then she hugged me until I was too out of breath to speak.

"If you don't promise to be my very chief est bridesmaid of all I shall simply break my heart!"