A FATAL CHOICE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5605, 16 August 1889, Page 4

A FATAL CHOICE.

[BY ADELINE SERGEANT.]

She was not a girl that you would havo thought of looking at more than once. She was neither ugly" nor deformed ; so much you saw in a glance ; but she whs not exactly pretty. She was pale and undersized, and, perhaps, rather common looking ; and aho had a great mass of black hair hanging to her eyebrows in front, and coiled up into some sort of a knot behind, after the fashion of most London work girls ; and she wore a second-haud flounced frock and a shabby black jacket, and a battered hat that had once been smart, with its limp, black feathers and soiled artificial roses, and shoes that were smlly down at tho heel. Lizzy Blackweli was no beauty; she possessed only one remarkable feature in her face—a pair of larare dark eyes with black lashes, and theso eyes wero so deeply set in hollows of purple shadow that they could hardly bo called attractive. Her nose and month were commonplace, her cheeks wore pale, her hands were coarse and redened by exposure to tho weather. You might havo passed her a dozen times in tho London streets without notice, for she was a slight insisrnificant little thiug. and, save for some unusual quietness of manner, not in any way distinguishable from the ordinary crowd of girls who jostled each other as they went to their factory or their workshop day after day along tho broad pavement of the Mile End Road.

Yet somobody must havo found her beautiful, whether you or I would have done so or not, for at eighteen Lizzy Blackweli had a lover, and a lover of whom she was very proud. He was such a respectable young man. His name was Edward Primroso; and lam sorry to say that some of his acquaintances spoke of him derisively as " Miss Prim," from which it may be conjectured that his habits were as decorous as his general demeanor was precise. Ho was a tall, thin, flaudy-haired young man, in tho grocery business ; he wore the cleanect and whitest of aprons when about his work, and ho was usually seen with a pen tucked noatly behind his ear so as not to interfere in tho very least with tho set of his shiny locks. Theso locka were always heavily pomatumed on Sundays, and—to his credit bo it said— his hands were generally clean. When ho had his best suit on, when ho had got rid of the apron and donned a bright green tie, a horstf-Bhoo pin, and a pair of dog-skin gloves, "you would not ha' known him," Lizzy used to say, " from the greatest duke in the land." And this gorgeous creature —of the highest respectability—was Lizzy Blackweli , a young man. How had it como about r For Lizzy's antecedents and circumstances were anything , but gorgeous; indeed, they could hardly be classed aa respectable. She had grandparents svho drank and occasionally thieved ; they sponged upon her and consumed her earnings ; now and then by way of variety,' they beat her. Her mother was dead; her father, she beliovcd, was in prison. She had a young brother who needed to be supported and sent to school. Altogether, tho connection was undesirable, find it was a romarkablo thing that Mr Edward Primrose, that very precise young shopman, should have condescended to look admiringly perhaps we should rather say patronieingly—into the depths of Lizzy's pretty, dark-fringed eyes. It all came out of a London fog. There are hearts for whom tho murky London atreets are full of glumor; for whom the yellow pall of smoke lifts on a vision of romance. Iv tho roise of a crowded thoroughfare, and in the light of some flaring naphtha jets, on a thick miety December night, Lizzy Black well first made the discovery that Mr Atkins assistant thought her worthy of his attention. Sho hud been making some humblo little purchases for Christmas —sugar, raisins, tea an orange or two, and a pennyworth, of sweets for her brother Dick, and had packed them neatly away in a basket on her arm, when, just as sho was leaving the shop, a big, ru'fßunly-li'oking fellow jostled her in the doorway upset her and her biiskct, helped himself to one or two of her pnekages, and then bolted off into the darkness of a aide-stret■!". Lizxy —or Liz, as her friends more often called her—uttered a quick, sharp, frightened cry, and then burst into helpless sobs and tors. •• What's the matter? " said Mr. Atkin'fi young man, coming to tho rescue in his ■white bib and apron, with his pen tucked behind his ear, " What can Ido for you, miss ? Police ' "

Bat it was no use to call out " Polir.o ! '

for tho marauder was by this time far away, and Lizzy commanded herself sufficiently to explain tho matter, and to pick up her remaining parcels. " It's only that I've spent all my money," sho said, with a sob, " an.i Gnmny'll havo no tea new, an' nho's that fond o , tea ! . . I'm all in a tremble," die added with a littlo laugh, " an' I dumio how I'll get 'ome."

" Wait a nmiuto," said the assistant gallantly, " and I'll walk homo with you. We've just going to close." •'Ob my !" Liz faltered, " But I couldn't think o' troubling you—" " No trouble at all," said Mr Primrose. "You're—you're—much too pretty you know, to go about by yourself so late o' nijrhts."

He did not know what made him Bay it. She certainly did look quit( [pretty as she stood in the doorway, the glare nf tho lumps adding brilliancy to her beautiful eyes and the flush on her pointed little faco. Her mouth, rosy at that moment with youth and excitement, trembled into a sweet vague smile as she heard hw words. Sho waited obediently until tho whop was closed, and then she allowed him to walk beside her and carry her basket all tho way home. Moreover, she let him kiss her, in tho shadow of tho doorway, before he said good-bye.

This wn« how it began

Since then sho had seen a good deal of him. Generally in the s,treet, of courno — what other promonado is there for the London working girl 'i They used to meet when tho shop was closed and walk up and down the pavement. And on Sunday afternoons they went into the country by 'buswhen Mr Primrose chose to spare a few pence for that purpose and the weather was fine and clear. But Mr Primrose was of an economical turn, and the weather has a way of looking gloomy in tho vicinity of Mile End Road. Lizzie discovered that he went to chapel every Sunday morning with his mother, and ollercd onco to accompany him, but he demurred.

" You ccc, my mother's very parhcular about dress und all that sort, of tning," ho said, with a glance at Lizzy's shabby garments, " aud sho might tako a sort of dislike to you if she saw you in an old frock, you know ; so suppoßO we wait a bit till you've got a now ono, and then I'll tell her all about you. She's a great friend of the minister's, my mother is," he went on reflectively, "and they're anxious in their minds about me just now, because I've givon up being a Sabbath school teacher in tho afternoons. It is you that made mo c!o that, you know, Lizzy." "Oh, I don't want to do you no harm, Udward," faltored Lizzy, tho tears gathering in her great dark oyes.

" I know you don't," ho answered in his patronising w»y; " nud so I'm euro you'll Bee that we had better wait for that now frock you've boon talking about so long. It's getting towards summer time now ; you'll bo smartening yourself up beforo long, I s'pose."

"Yee, Edward," said Lizzy, rather faintly.

Sho had intended to make her old dress last throughout the summer, but she did not dare to tell him so. Tho money that sho earned iv tho factory went towards keeping her grandparents and her little brother ; she eldom spent v penny upon herself. But if Edward expected her to have a now frock, a new fro>;k sho must have; and Mr Blackwell, her grandfather, must go without his rum, and Mm Blackweli without her gin, and both without very much tobacco, until she had saved sufficient from her wages to buy tho cheap flimsy Htufl' which a neighbor would help her to run together. On one thing sho was determined still to spend part of her money. Dick, her brother, should not be stinted of food or deprived of schooling for all the lovers in tho world. And accordingly she had to exercise much selfdenial, and boar hunger for herself und abuno from her grandpurtnts, before she was ablo to save enough money to pay even an instalment of tho price of her now gown.

She had chosen a bright pink material, thin in substance und somewhat glaring in design, and sho trimmed her old black hat •with pink ribbon to corresjJond. Tho color was becoming to her from an artistic point pf view. Kven Edward Primrose looked at her with complacency when, by proviou* arraugoinout, sho made her way into Zion Chapel and took a seat which brought her within sight of old Mrs. Primroso and her son. But tho worshippers at Zion Chapel had not much artistic taste. Thoy gave very disapproving glances in tho .stranger's direction, uud Mrs. Primrose's glances were more disapproving thun all tho others. As for Lizzy, tliu novelty of her position overcame her. She had never been to ohapfl before, und very seldom to church. She did not know exactly when to stand up and when io sit down. &he could iit>t find her place in tho Bible that was handed to lier across tlic pews, r:nl she knocked down her hymn-book with a bang that drew tho ey<;d uf the whole congregation upon hor. Shi' eye-'' "f Mrs. Primrose were particularly cxi'ivl-m'vi! uf coml'.'mruUion. ' Aitcr tin. , service Liiwio pushed open the pow-dour with \iiiiiil<-nlU'ii;tl nniseness in orui f U> get: out inr.u U;i; .■tislc, h<) as to oncountw Mff ;ui<l her (.-on, wl.o, sh« thought., would bu sure to lcavo their

seats at once. But Mrs Primrose lingered in a semi-devout attitude; and Edward, looking rather nervously at hia mother and then at Lizzy in the aisli", did not venture to make a move. Lizzy glanced at him piteously, and her eyes filled with tears as phe walked slowly out of the building. And not till she was fairly outside did Mrs Primrose stir, and then she put hor arm within that of her son and trotted away with him as fast as she could go. So that ho had not the slightest, chance of speakmg to his poor little sweetheart. (TO B's CONTINUED.)