WITCH HAZEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9325, 30 March 1889, Page 3 (Supplement)

WITCH HAZEL.

BY MBS. GEOItGIE SHELDON,, . Author of " Brownie's Triumph," " The Forsaken . Bride," &c., - CHAPTER XLII. ■ ; t . • : t '■ hazel's engagement. •' - Percy and Hazel did nob meet again bo- : fore the supper hour. The young gir rather avoided him for fear of betraying the great new happiness that had come Into her heart. Lord kelson met her soon after her little chat with Percy, and wondered at the peculiar radiance that illumined her every feature. She greeted him with such sweet frankness, and expressed such hearty pleasure at his presence, that he, for a moment, was inclined to hope that he might yet win her. But she soon adroitly turned him over to -Marie, and the halfhour that he spent with her made him wonder why he had never before discovered how lovely she was. Belle made herself agreeable to Mr. Osborn, whom she had always heartily liked, and she now took special pains to let g him and everyone else know it, though she wondered what made him watch Helena so much with that bitter, almost despairing look in his eyes. Helena herself llirted openly with a greyhaired earl, who had had three wives and was looking tor a fourth, report said. She had never appeared more brilliant ; she had never been more beautiful, although there was a wild brilliance in her eyes, a peculiar restlessness and unnaturalness in her manner, which made her another regard. her from time to time with great anxiety. At supper time Percy sought Hazel, and drawing her arm through his-, remarked in a significant tone : " We are not hungry, Hazel, arc we ?" "I can only answer 110 for myself," she replied, with a shy smile. "Then come with me to the upper balcony," he said, and led her upstairs to a porch that had been built over the front entrance, which commanded a fine view of the city and the surging, restless sea beyond. But Percy cared little for the view tonight ; he had much to tell her, and a great question to settle. He made her sit down and then took a Beat beside her.

"Now, my darling," he said, determined to know his fate at once, " answer me truly the question I asked you downstairs. Would, you be willing to share the life of a poor man—my life, Hazel, if all I had to offer you was the great love of my heart ? Could you bear to till an humble position as tpy wife ? My beloved, I am several years older than you, but 1 have loved you since you were a little child ; my hopes have all centred in you, my future has been planned almost wholly with reference to you. I should not have dared to tell you this tonight, dear, but from the fact that you have turned from the offer of a more brilliant future, and because you have told me that you had 110 love to give in exchange. Oh, Hazel, if I might but hope that you would be willing to share my life," he concluded, his voice trembling with the intensity of his love. He bent down to look into her eyes, and Ebe lifted them with grave, sweet frankness to his.

"I am proud, Percy, that you wish me to share your life, whatever it may be," she 6aid, in a low, earnest tone.

He gathered her into his arms with an exclamation of joy ; he raised her fair face and kissed her with reverent lips—her brow, her cheeks, her lips. " I do not believe you realise how much you have given me, Hazel,"' he said, in a „siremulous tone ; " life —hope—everything a man could ask for this side of heaven. 1 '

" I have only given you myself, Percy, and to me it seems a poor return for the noblest heart that ever beat. You call yourself poor, when you have crowned me with the richest offering that the world could give me," Hazel murmured, with her lips against his cheek. " Do you love me like that, my darling ?" be asked, deeply moved at this revelation of the depth of her affection. "Oh ! how I have longed for some sign of this from you during the last year or two." A sweet laugh rippled softly over Hazel's lips. " How very, very blind you have been, Percy," she said. " Blind !" he repeated, wonderingly. " I have supposed that you loved me only as a sister might love an elder brother, and not ev-en as much as that sometimes." " And I have tried so hard to convince you that I did not occupy a sister's position «— sister would have been willing to share her brother's home," Hazel returned. " What! did you love me even then ; was fchat the reason you would not come to me, darling ?" " I could not occupy a false position," she replied, in a low tone. "And would you have given yourself to me then, if I had asked you to be my wife ?" Percy asked, eagerly. " Perhaps you did not want a wife then ; but, if you had tempted me, I am afraid you would have found yourself irrevocably hampered," Hazel laughingly retorted. " Hampered!" he cried, clasping her closer; " how much time I have lost when I might have been so happy in the knowledge of this !"

Yes, a little more than three months ; how dreadful !" Hazel returned, roguishly. " But they have seemed ages to me, and I have suffered torture in the fear of losing yon, when I saw others, younger and more favoured by fortune, seeking you. Are you sure, Hazel, that you do nob care for position or wealth?" he asked, gravely. " Oh, yes, I do like such things immensely !" she answered, with a positive nod of her pretty head ; "it is delightful to mingle in. cultured society, and it is very nice to have plenty of money, but if those things could not be shared with you, they would be bub husks to me."

"My own darling! what a loyal heart you have, and you will not lose your reward. Hazel, the ' poor doctor' has a history, as well as yourself, and he is only too happy to be able to tell you that it will be in his power to give you not only wealth, but a position also, equal to that which, as Miss Graham, you new enjoy." "Percy! what can you mean?" Hazel cried, wonderingly. "Have you never had any suspicion that I might not be Sandy Morton's grandchild ?" he asked.

Hazel started, and regarded him with astonishment.

"I have often wondered why you were so different from him, but I thought perhaps it was because your mother may have possessed more natural refinement of manner, ■which, you inherited from her," who firiswered. 44 But are you not his grand.son V" " No. I have never told you that I had any doubt about it, because the mystery seemed likely never to be explained ; but when my grandfather was dying, he gave me a package and tried to tell me something, begging me to forgive him for some wrong which he had done me ; but what that was 1 was unable to learn, for his tongue was paralysed before he could conclude his confession. The package contained an infant's clothing, and a string of amber beads, fastened with a golden clasp on which the letters ' P.H.' were engraven. Last week I learned to whom they belonged, and that I am the only son of Sir Henry Harwood."

Hazel's face was both white and blank as she listened to this startling announcement.

" Percy ! it cannot be possible ! you the Bon of Sir Henry Harwood," she cried, breathlessly. Yes, darling, his only child." " Then who —Charlie?"

" He is the son of the man whom I have always believed to be my father, Captain William Morton, and he was adopted by Sir Henry and his wife soon after the loss of their own child—myself—who was washed overboard during the same storm that wrecked Captain Morton's vessel and in the same locality." " How very strange. How did it happen ?" Hazel asked, wonderingly . "It seems that a steamer collided with Morton's vessel during a dense fog ioilo>finjr the storin of which I have spoken, and both were seriously injured. Captain Morton'h ship had to be abandoned and ail bub three of the crew were lost. The steamer was only temporarily disabled, out aiter the collision a fire broke out in the cabin and the women were carried on deck, while the men worked for dear life to •quench the flames below. The waves ran and I, a little babe in my mother's

•* • . ♦ arms, "was .washed overboard into the hungry waters. Only a little later a couple of sailors belonging to the Fortuna—Captain "Morton's vessel—picked me up, aAt believinc me to be their .captain 1 "child, conveyed me to the lighthouse-keeper and his wife, while his little grandson was 1 found by the second mate, who, having a grudge against his superior ' officer, determined to pay it off by keeping the boy from him. He found, too late, that the captain and his wife- had both perished and his spite amounted to nothing, save a great wrong committed .against an innocentchild. When ho would, have restored the child to its' relatives he found that it had been adopted by some persons unknown and taken away from the asylum where had left it. The lighthouse - keeper and his wife doubtless discovered from the rich clothing of the child taken to them, and the clasp .to the necklace, bearing the initials 'P.H.,' that the sailors Had brought them a strange child. " But as they must have believed that, their own grandson had perished with its patents, out of the kindness of their afflicted hearts, they concluded to keep me and rear me as their own."

Percy went 011 to explain more fully what we already know regarding himself and the adopted son of Sir Henry Harwood, and Hazel listened spellbound, to the strange romance. When Percy reached London about two hours after Charlie .Harwood, who had left his bed to learn the truth.of Tom Lawson's story from his parents' lips, he found that lie had learned all about himself which they could tell. Percy was at once interviewed to discover if he was connected in any way with the old light-keeper, and it was then ascertained that ho had been adopted and reared by him as his own. The young man then told his own suspicions, producing the package of clothing# and the amber necklace, all of which were instantly recognised by Mrs. Harwood as belonging to the babe that she believed had perished during that never-to-be-forgotten night of horrors at sea. and Percy was at once joyfully claimed as the son of the great physician. Percy then insisted upon making over to Charlie the property which Sandy Morton had left-, but the young man would not list-on to the proposition. " It is yours, left by a will, and I will not have it," he said.

"Audi cannot feel right to keep it," Percy said, just as decidedly, and there the matter had to rest- for the time.

But, it may as well be stated here, at the suggestion of Sir Henry, that they finally decided to divide it equally between them.

"Of course," lie told them, "Charlie is as much my boy as he ever was, and the only difference this revelation makes is that 1 am richer by one son and you will both henceforth share alike in our affection, as well as in the handsome property which I shall leave you by-anti-bye." Percy and Charlie grasped hands in true brotherly feeling over this decision, and the hearts of the good physician and his devoted wife were filled with gratitudeover this happy termination of their early troubles.

"It is almost incomprehensible," Hazel said, when Percy had completed his story. "Indeed it is," he answered; "I can scarcely realise it myself." " And you are not Percy Morton at all ?" the young girl added, with a little sigh of regret. "Indeed I am—l could never think of discarding the good name which my kind old grandfather—for I can think of him in no other light—bestowed upon me," Percy said, almost tenderly, " I shall simply add the name of Harwood to it." "And Mr. Charles Harwood?" "Will be Charles Han ood still. It would be unkind to my father and mother to make any change in his name. He was egally adopted, too, and, since his own riends are all dead, he will wound no one by retaining it." Hazel uttered a long sigh. " What a romance you and I have lived, Percy ! What a strange double romance has been revealed here in Brighton during the last few days !" she said, wonderingly. " That is true; but," glancing at his watch, "we have been here a whole hour, and I hear the guests coming up from supper. May I take you down to your mother and just whisper in her ear that you are going to be a doctor's wife ?" "I suppose it is only right that mamma should know it," Hazel replied, blushing a lovely crimson, and rising. Percy smoothed the light rings fondly away from her forehead. "This brow would have worn the strawberry leaves with stately grace," he said, bending to touch it with trembling lips. "Are yon sure you will never regret exchanging the duke for the doctor?" Hazel laughed softly. "Let me whisper something in your ear," she said, gayly. "I do not believe I have utterly lost the duke, even now. I prophesy that I shall yet secure himfor a brother. Don't you think Marie would make a lovely duchess ?" " Indeed she would if that were possible," Percy replied, but looking somewhat surprised and a trifle sceptical as well. For how could anyone who had once loved Hazel ever turn his affections elsewhere?

He sincerely admired and respected Lord Hartwell, and deeply regretted the disappointment that he must have suffered in losing Hazel. Helena Stewart saw Percy and Hazel when they re-entered the drawing-room. She had missed them both from the room, and surmised that they were together, and now, the moment that her eyes fell on them, she knew by the light on their faces that the die was cast, and that her own future, as far as Percy Morton was concerned, would be a blank.

She watched him as he led Hazel directly to her mother and bent to whisper something in her ear, and she knew, by the fond smile which Mrs. Earlescourt bestowed upon them both, that their engagement was ratified.

A shudder shook Helena from crown to sole, every atom of colour died out of her face, and a wild, despairing look gleamed from her eyes; then she suddenly rallied, and became even gayer and more brilliant then before.

Something of Percy's romantic story had got abroad during the evening, and now people gathered about him with congratulations and good wishes, and he soon found himself quite the lion of the evening. "Hazel, is it true?" Belle asked of her friend a little later. "Is it true that Dr. Morton is Sir Henry Harwood's son ?" '' Yes, dear—the fact has been established beyond a doubt." " Is it not wonderful ?" Belle continued. "And is ib true, too, that—you are engaged to him '! Mamma heard Mrs. Earlescourt say something about it to her grace." Hazel nodded shyly, and blushed. "'Tell it not in Clath,' dear, just yet," sli3 whispered, and then ran away to hide her confusion and escape further questioning. Helena had been standing near, and had caught enough of their conversation to comprehend its nature. An agonised look swopfc over her faco, and the next moment she passed out through a long window upon the verandr.h, her step unsteady, her heart beating with heavy throbs of jealousy and despair. [To be continuod.)