BARRINGTON'S RUSE.

Lake County Press, Issue 1065, 21 May 1903, Page 6

BARRINGTON'S RUSE.

" Now, Arthur," said Mrs. Barrington, as her husband put three hand-bags in the scat beside her in the deeper, and handed over six baggage-checks, '" 1 want you to be sure and write to me every day, and tell rue everything you think, just how much you miss me, arid all about the way the servant gels along—-don't,omit any of the details, thinking that 1 shall not bo interested, for every word that you write, dear, will be precious to me, I'ut plenty of local colour in your letters." " Oh, I'll keep you posted," he replied. "You go ahead and haye a good time and don't wony about inc. I*ll get along some way. Of course it 11 be lonely and all that, but I'll manage to pass the time It'll be. 4ithcr dismal for mo lo sit on U'e front porch alone whin it. begins to gt t (lark, thinking of you in the gay crowd having a good time, and never giving a thought to " "Arthur liarrington," his pretty wife in terrupted, " if you continue to talk that way I just sha'n't go. You know I shall think of you every minute I'm away, and if the doctor hadn't said the sea uir would be good for me I wouldn't have thought of accepting Aunt Laura's invitation, t'lease don't fret, for rne, lotp, will you? Remember that, where'er 1 may be, and no matter how gay my surroundings, 1 shall bn thinking of you and "' (lowering tur voice to a whisper) " my Boul will still be communing with your soul." They threw kisses at each other as the train moved away. Then Bariiogton went to his office and began writing letters. They were \o his wife. Ha wrote fourteen of them—enough to last two week* la general outline the letteis were the same. He started o3ch by tilling a sheet with endearing words and declarations that he was very lonely without his darling. Then followed the local colour she r-anted in the form of comment on oceui rences ol the. day iu and arouud their home. The letters were not dated, but he sealed and addressed them, and arranged them in a bunch, so that his stenographer could take oit' the top one day alter day, and drop it into the mail-box. He had been g<>ne nearly a week when there camo a telegram for him. Of course telegrams had to be opened, and, when Miss Wildreth, the stenographer, read the message, she turned pale: •' Why don't you answer my (piestions about the housemaid's ankle and your liver? Am awfully worried." That was what Elizabeth Bar rington had telegraphed. After studying the matter for a while Miss Wildreth decided that it was necessary for her to act. She was clever enough to hold a position that not more than one man out of fifty could have, rilled, and she had the habit of keeping her eyes and ears ©pen. Still, she said to hciself: " The housemaid's ankle. I can see how he might know something about his own liver, but—and why should his wife, of all people, want him to sec about it? Well, if I ever get married " But instead of finishing what she had started to say she wrote the following despatch; " Leg and lif cr O.K. Don't worry." It was about ten o'clock the next day when another telegram for Arthur Bairington was received, it road: " Yesterday's kttor contradicts telegram. Why are you deceiving me? Are you better to-day? Shall I come home?"' The stenographer's reply was as follows; "Am true as steel. Don't think of coming home." Miss Wildreth had just begun to feel that she had succeeded in settling the disagreeable business when a messenger boy ariived with another telegram iu which her employer's wife said : " Dun't understand. What do you mean by being true as steel ? Something tells nie you are worse. Wiie immediately." The stenographer replied : '• Never mind reference to steel. Am all right." Mrs. Barrington watched eagcily for the postman on the following day, and when he handed her Arthur's letter, she opened it with trembling lingers. Eagerly she scanned the first page and was about half through the local colour when she jumped up and ran to her aunt, crying : " Merciful goodness ! What can this mean ? Three days ago Arthur wrote that the housemaid was ' still laid up with her lame ankle,' which I have tried in vain to net him to toll mo-about, and that ho was not feeling well, and the doctor had told him his liver was out of order. Yet here in to-day's letter ho tells me that the housemaid has just fallen out of a cherry-tree, spraining her ankle, and that he made, himself a Welsh rarebit tilght befoic last and ate so much of it that his liver is all upset. Why on earth did the housemaid climb a cherry tree when she had a fame ankle.and whatever possessed Arthur to eat a Welsh rarebit when the doctor had just warned him about his liver?" Her aunt, .vas trying to figure it out, when Elizabeth Barrington happened to think of the telegram she had received I he day before. "This letter must have been written about the time they were sent," she said. "I'm going home. Something's wrong. Arthur's liver trouble has gone to his head. My poor darling has lost his reason. He writes a thing and then denies it by telegiaph. By stalling to-night I can be with him tomorrow forenoon. Oh, how sha'l I pass the weaij hours ?" Miss Wildreth broke down and made a full confession when Mis. Barrington rushed, wild-eyed and pale, into her husband's oliice. Then the two young women sat together in the private room and wept. "If I hadn't accidentally knocked over the pilo of letters he left to be mailed," the stenographer sobbed, " they would not have been mixed up; there would have been no reference to the spraining of the housemaid's ankle before it happened and his liver would not hare troubled him until he ate the iarebit. How shall 1 ever be able to explain it to him. " You needn't try," Mrs. Barrington answered. "I'll explain to him when ho comes out of the woods. Dear old fellow ! I'm so glad he doesn't know anything about this. He mightn't be having a good time at all if he did."