LORLIE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8408, 8 November 1890, Page 3 (Supplement)

LORLIE.

BY MRS. CHARLOTTE MAY KINGSLEY, Author of " Lady Gabrielle'a Fortune," " A Dread, fill Secret," "Last for Love," " An Awful Secret,' "Kathleen O'Connor," etc., etc. CHAPTER X.—(Continued.) WHICH TF. 1. I.S ITS OWN STORY. Somk few minutes later Lorlie made her appearance with Bridget clinging s limp, white, spiritless to her arm, and obeying Sir Lionel's injunction, led her to a spot where the young baronet had already placed a steamer-chair and some rugs and where Jamesie sat in full and proud possession of the still squalling Mary Ellen.

" I got these from the purser," explained Sir Lionel, as he arranged the steamer-chair and the rugs. " Must have been left aboard by somebody on the last trip over, for I see that the rugs are all marked L.F. But no matter about that. We've got 'em and that's the main point. Let mo help your friend to take possession. She'll be easier now I imagine." "Troth, thin, I'll nivcr be aisier till I'm dead, an' av the ship don't lave off its divarsions, sure that'll be this blessed noight, no less," responded Bridget with a groan as sho collapsed and dropped helplessly and heavily into the steamerchair. "But livin' or dyin', faith itVi thankful I am av yer koindness, an' may the devil niver catch you till Bridget McLoughlin is willin', which is niver at all, at all, see you an' thrue fur ye. Thank him fur me, Lorlie, asthore, thank him fur me, acushla, an' ax the Lord's biissin' on the illigent head av him, fur me heart's too full to spake, an' praise be that it is, for musha, God knows but it's the ownly full tiling there is about me." "Ob, thank you, thank you for your kindness !" exclaimed Lorlie, lifting her bright, moist eyes to his face, and giving him a smile that repaid him for everything, " We are not able to show our appreciation of your goodness save by words, sir, and words convey so little when tho heart wishes to show its gratitude to a stranger." " Why not say 'a friend,' Miss Douglass?" ho smiled, sinking his voice a little, and bowing courteously over the little hand fhe held out to him. "You have given that title to Mrs. McLoughlin after a brie! acquaintance; why not give it to me and date our friendship from the time we met in the dell ?"

Her eyes lifted and fell again, and a bright, rich colour stained her lovely face. " You remember that?" sho timidly said, smiling the while, and wondering why she should feel so glad that that trying episode still lingered in hij mind. " I thought you had forgotten. It was only momentary, and I am afraid that I acted rudely at tho time. I never for a moment dreamed that you would remember me."

His fingers insensibly tightened upon the little hand he held, and his eyes brightened. "Is that equivalent to saying you remembered me?" he gently asked. "I hope it is—l hope you will always remember me, and — Pardon me!"'—confusedly and quickly, as she involuntarily stepped back and drew her hand, not rudely nor suddenly, but with easy firmness, from his—" pardon me ! I did not mean to offend you, and if the remark seems bold or ungallanb, pray remember that it was not my wish to be either. I have a poor way of expressing myself sometimes, and to-nighb I seem to bo doubly unfortunate. What I wished to say is that I hope always to be worthy of your friendship and esteem, and I hope always to merit your remembrance. I have nob forgotten our chance meeting, Mis Douglass ; 1 have thought of you so often since then (and wondered so frequently what could have been the cause of your bre: thloss haste, and of your apparent anxiety at the time), I pray you not to misconstrue my motives nor to misunderstand my words. I wish to bo your friend, if you will allow me—truly and sincerely your friend —and I beg of you nob to regard my thoughtless words in any bub the true light." He knew, as surely as though she had told him, that the withdrawal of her hand from his was done undor the impression that he was taking advantage of her poverty, and using the kindness he had shown her as a means of oponing a flirtation, but he also know by the light in her eyes, and the frank expression of her face when he ceased speaking, that that impression was now banished, and that she meant every word she uttered when she pub forth her hand again, and said : " We shall be real friends, and I am very, very sorry if I for a momenb misjudged the value of such friendship you have offered me, sir." He took the little hand, bent courteously, deferentialy, half-reverently over it, and then let it drop. " Will you accept my arm, then, as a sort of peace-offering?" he laughingly said, "and let us take a turn up and down the deck in the moonlight and watch the waves roll by." Her only answer was a smile. Without hesitation she accepted it; without hesitation she began that brief promenade which was to change the whole course of three human lives, and without so much as one poor thought of Miss Ignatia Dysarb and the affair of ten minutes ago, he strolled along with her and totally forgot that, but for the heaving of this blessed ship, he would at this very moments have been pledged in all honour —pledged for life—to a woman who now lay in her stateroom, a victim to seasickness.

CHAPTER XI. WHICH TKLIjS ANOTHER one. For some moments they strayed up and down the deck, listening to the wash of the waters and the frequent apostrophes uttered by poor Bridget to the memory of the man who " invinted ships, bad manners to him ! when God knows ib was aisier thravellin' be bridges, an' moor restful to thestummick it 'ud be to cross the say be the ingiue an' the cars !" Then, as Sir Lionel found a comfortable nook and established her in it, Lorlie sudI denly looked up into his face, and said : " Do you know that I have misjudged you twice during our brief acquaintance ?" "Have you That's jolly. No, I don't mean that ; I mean—how ?" he smiled as he seated himself upon a coil of rope at" her feet, and throwing one lee: over the other, clasped both hands about his knee and looked questioningly up into her face—such a beautiful, innocent face, he found time bo remark, even then. "How did you misjudge me, Miss Douglass, may I ask?" " Well, I am afraid the first case will not. be very flattering to your vanity nor to my powers of perception," she answered, with a shy, sweet laugh and a lovely rise of colour. "How shall I tell it? I—l thought yor vere a London clerk, enjoying a vacation among the highlands of Forfar, when I first encountered you in the glen. Not that you looked —save, Mrhaps, in the careless andshall I say shabby, manner in which you were dressed ? A terrible blunder, wasn't it?" "Stupendous!" he answered, rolling up his eyes in mock horror. "Can't conceive of anything more diabolical in the whole range of human possibilities. So much for error number one. Now, then, what blood-curdling mistake was error number two ?" In the clear, penetrating moonlight he saw her face change colour, saw the smile leave her lips, the brightness die out of her eyes, and an expression—part terror, part contempt—darken and harden hor fair and flawless countenance. " I thought that, after all, yon might be a friend of Sir Seely Errol's," she answered,. gravely. "A friend, and a social equal, and as such you could never be a friend of mine."

Ho glanced at her sharply, startled and surprised by this assertion, his lips parted and his dark brows arched inquiringly. "A friend and an equal of Sir Seely Errol'B !" he repeated in a troubled voice. "And why, may I ask, is it. impossible for a friend and an equal of Sir Seely Errol's to bo also a friend of yours?" "There are two reasons—two very good reasons," she answered, dropping her eyes and thoughtfully following the seams of the deck with the too of her shoo. " One of them, at least, must be obvious to you. I am but ii poor, lowly-born Scotch peasant, and the gulf is too great between my station and that.of a man who is the social equal of a baronet!" " That is one of your reasons, eh ? May I ask the other ? Why could no friend of this Sir Seely Errol's be a friend of yours?" She hesitated a moment, the indignant blood mounting 1 slowly to her temples, and the lines hardening about her lips. Then : " Because Sir Seely Errol is a coward and a poltroon !" she answered, desperately. " Because 1 prefer to think that like attracts like, and a man who could have a friend's feeling for him, is a man I would shun as I would a pestilence." He looked at her with still keener interest, still deeper amazement. " He has done you some grievous wrong then—this Sir Seely Errol ?" ho said, his lips paling a trifle. "He has done me a villainous wrong—a cowardly wrong !" she answered, spiritedly. " Ho has driven mo from my home, driven mo from my people, and made me what J am—a refugee, seeking shelter in an unknown land. Oh, I -can't tell you all, sir, only—only that my grandfather was one of his tenants, that he threatened to turn us out for non-payment of rent, and then left it to me to say whether thoy should die in the workhouse, or—or retain the farm without paying what was due !" "And you did—what?"—hoarsely. " A most unwomanly thing, perhaps, but —I could not help it," she answered, huskily. " I plucked the riding-whip from his hand and laid the lash across his face until he shrieked for mercy !" "Bravo! bravo!" exclaimed Sir Lionel, leaning forward suddenly, catching her hands and shaking them heartily. " So you lashed him, did you ? It was right—it was just. I hono'T you for it, and I only wish that I had been near when the coward insulted you ! By Heaven ! I wouldn't have left a whole bone in his worthless carcase. Well, go on, you lashed him, and then, what happened afterward !" Sho gave him a brief outline of the affair and told him how but for Bridget McLoughlin sho might even now be an inmate of Dundee gaol. " She saved me, asking nothing but the consciousness of having befriended a forlorn and helpless girl," she concluded, her eye? turning tenderly to the spot where Bridget sat; "and when I cease to remember her kindness and cease to be grateful to her, I hope that Heaven will forget me." " Why, she's a trump—she's a brick !" exclaimed Sir Lionel, admiringly ; " and as for that blessed baby of hers, it's a seraph, that's what it is, and it shall yell till it splits its precious little throat and I'll never Say ' boo !' to —I wont, upon my soul !" "lam sure you are very kind, sir," responded Lorlie, understanding from this that he probably had said " boo !" to it, and a most emphatic " boo !" at that, during the period of its ear-splitting yells as he bore " it" up to the deck. "And so you thought me a friend of that contemptible rascal, did you ?" exclaimed Sir Lionel, a moment later. " Why, how in thun—how in the world did you come to make sitch an error as that "I don't just know how I reasoned it out," she answered. " Bub I dare say it was because the knowledge that you were a saloon passenger convinced me at once that you couldn't possibly be a clerk, and Hi

your proximity to Sir Seely's party upon J that day may have led me to suppose that you were the gentleman for whom they were inquiring." " What gentleman ? Which party? Who was inquiring?" he asked, nervously. "That young lady who insulted me and offered me money as though 1 were a beggar that Miss DyMn—or Dysart—-yes, that was the name, Miss Dysart., an American heiress." "Eh? What? and she insulted you, you say? Well, by George, this is getting intescsting, and— How was it? What did she do ?" "Offered me money to stand still and be examined as though I were a natural curiosity," responded Lorlie, following the assertion by giving him an outline of the affair. "It was from that I was running when I stumbled over you, and when I saw you here to-night, and realised that you were rich enough to be a saloon passenger, I fancied that you might, after all, be the gentleman whose absence they were deploring. Sir Lion. I think they called him, Sir Lion, or possibly Sir Lionel—l didn't try to remombcr the name. I saw his mother, and if the son is like her, I fancy that he must be an exceedingly unpleasant person to know, Mr.— She paused and glanced up ab him inquiringly, and for the first time—oh, how he blessed the knowledge now—it dawned upon Sir Lionel that he had not told her his name. " Bless me, how very forgetful of me! Why, I haven't told you my name yet, have I?" he laughed, using this as a means of gaining time in which to think of a cognomen now that he realised the advisability of concealing his own. Pardon my neglect. My name is Burleigh. Miss Douglass—Arthur Burleigh—l'm a landscape painter." She arched Iter golden brows and looked at him in smiling surprise. " How very odd !" she said. " This is just like one of Tennyson's poems—' The Lord of Burleigh'a nobleman who wooed a poor girl under an assumed name. Don't you remember the lines ? " 'She a simple village maiden, Anil a landscape painter lie.' " "Yes," he answered, with an uneasy laugh, as she hit upon the very thing which had given him the idea. " Yes, it is odd— very odd—although 1 hadn't remarked it before. But it's only in the name and vocation that I bear any likeness to the duffer I should say the hero—that Tennyson drew, Ho was a lord in disguise, and had his pockets lined with bank-notes, and all that, while I, bless you ! I'm as poor as .lob's turkey, and thereof} no prospect of me owning any ' baronial/halls and castles grey.' " "What! pool/ Mr. Burleigh? Poor, and yet you dress flike this and are a saloon passenger ?"' J He laughed again—still more uneasily— and gave his big moustache such a twist that two or three long dark hairs were wrenched out by the root?. " Bless you ! I didn't pay the passage money !" lie answered—and there was truth in that, for it came out of her ladyship's purse. " Fact is I'm on my way to America, merely to execute a commission to—to make some sketches for an illustrated paper in London, and as the publishers pay my passage, of course they wouldn't dare send me out any way but first-class !" " Oh, of course not !" acquiesced Lorlie, innocently ; "I suppose moreover it is an advertisement for the paper, too, as the saloon passengers must know of your commission, and seeing you, will doubtless wish to see your work. Do you canvass for the journal at the same time, Mr. Burleigh?"artlessly. "It would be an excellent opportunity to secure subscribers, I should think !"' "Oh, it is—ib is!" he averred. "Why, bless you, I have two-thirds of the saloon passengers on the list already, and to-mor-row I am going to tackle the ' intermediates.' If you fail to see me about the deck at any time during the voyage, you may know that I'm attending to business. That's why you see me so well-dressed. Makes an impression, and all that, and once again the publishers stand the expense. But let us change the subject and talk of your prospects for awhile. Tell me: What do you intend to do when you reach America, Miss Douglass ?" " I don't know," she answered, her face clouding and her shoe again following the seams of the deck. "Bridget expects her husband to meet her when the vessel arrives —he is a builder's assistant, Mr. Burleigh, carries up the materials to the bricklayers she says, and holds quite a responsible position. Perhaps he will know of something I can do to earn a living, for I am sure I do not. But Bridget, bless her ! says that I am nob to worry, for I shall have a home and a shelter with her until I know what to do, but if the worst come to the worst and I find no other field open to me, little as I relish the idea of such a life, I shall fall back upon my voice as a means of gaining sustenance." " Your voice?" —questioningly "Yes, dear Lady Stewart, from whom Sir Seely Errol inherited the Towers, always asserted that I had a most remarkable voice and that it only needed cultivation to make me a really fine singer. She may have been biassed in her opinions, however, for she was always fond of me, and, before she died, often asked me to the Towers to sing for her guests when she had company. " She even went so far as to have me taught by old Professor Anstruther at Dundee, and was kind enough to let me repay her by singing for her guests, or for her dear, kind self when she felt ill or lowspirited. Ah, if she had lived, I should nob have been turned out of the old house where my mother died, and should, perhaps, still be one of the old professor's pupils. " He wished me to remain under his tuition, and then to repay him for his time and trouble in instructing me by becoming $ public singer, and remaining under his management for a term of years. I did not like the life, and would not consent, so we parted company. I could not think of sing; ing for any and everybody that choose to pay and demand the right to be pleased. My voice is for my friends alone, Mr. Burleigh." " And as you have promised that I may be one of them, will you not sing for me?" he asked, moving nearer and looking up into her face with eager eyes. "We are alone here. The deck is all but deserted, and if you could find heart to sing one little song I should prize the kindness highly. With this moonlight and this solitude of sea about us, ib only needs song to make the picture a poem. Will you sing for me? —nob loudly, only so that I may hear, you know." " If you wish," she answered with a smile. " What shall it be ? Crave or gay ?—a song of the shore, or a romance of the sea ?" " ' As the queen wills'—the queen of song, I mean," he said with a smile. And she pausing a moment to think, looked out over the surging, moon-silvered waters, lifted up her voice and sung in a clear, sweet soprano, Pinsuti's charming, tenderly-pathetic arrangement of " Marianna." It was music—oh, r'ost perfect music— and he no longer wondered that Lady Stewart had predicted gre.it things for such a voice as that.

So long as it floated about bis ears, he sat as one in a spoil, drinking in its sweetness, and staring at her with wide, bewildered, half-reverent eyes. And oftenah, bow often—in the wild and tragical after days, when the world told her story, and people who knew and loved her spoke her name with hashed voices and moistened eyes—how often he saw her as he saw her now, heard the sweet music of her marvellous voice, anil recalled the words she sung to-night: " Ami Ave Maria was her moan ; • Madonna, sail is night and mom. Ah, oh, she sung I"' be all alone, To live forgotten and love forlorn." CHAPTER XII. " nOOD-BVK, SWKKTHKAUT." Until the last sweet note quivered into silence, and the wash of the mighty ocean alone sounded, ho safe and listened, entranced, enthralled, his fancy, like many another man's, caught and made captive by the power of a voice, and the tender melody of a tender song ; and not until she turned her lovely, moon-illumined face to his for some sign of approval did he speak or stir. ■* "Ib was charming! it was divine!" he said, enthusiastically. " Lady Stewart was right, you have a marvellous /oice, and ib ■ is a pity for the world to lose it." " Bub I do not like the life— do nob care for the publicity." " I am glad you do not," he answered. " The time has long since passed when the stage need apologise for its existence, or the talents of its devotees be misjudged and misunderstood ; but—call me bigoted,

narrow-minded, if you —but lam glad that you do not care for it, Miss Lorlie !"

"I do not, I assure you, and I should on'y turn to it in case of actual necessity." "lam glad of thatl am very glad of that. Perhaps it may seem foolish, but to me a woman on the stage seems to belong to all, not to one individual, as I would wish that you—" He caught himself just in time, and as though he had just noticed it, called out suddenly : "By Jove ! but there's a monster. Do look at that wave, Miss Lorlie. Why, it is like a mountain." "Yes, a mountain of silver," she ncquiosced, " for it is all a-elitter with moonlight. How beautiful it —how beautiful the whole majestic ocean is—and to think it should be so treacherous, so destructive, so deadly." "And'to think there should be so many things in this world just like it—beautiful, treacherous, deadly 1" he responded, lightly. " But there ! I mustn't turn moralist and croaker, especially upon such brief acquaintance, or yon will form a false opinion of me." "I havo done that already," she answered with a laugh ; "done it, seen the folly of my ways and repented. " "Have you?"—eagerly. "That's no end kind of you. I'm not a bad sort when you know me better, and — Oh, I say, Miss Lorlie, I shall be a strange beggar in a strange land when the ship reaches port. Do you think that the McLoughlins would take pity on me, too ?'' She had been watching the sea with wide, admiring eyes, I-it she turned as he spoke and glanced up at him in smiling astonishment. "Meaning what, Mr. Burleigh?" " Why, that I haven't the slightest idea where in tho world to locate when I reach New York, and if the McLoughlins would Consent to take me as a lodger, it would be a real charity to a waif and stray. Being poor, you know, I shall be obliged to take up my abode in humble quarters, and if they could be persuaded to accommodate me, I'd be no end obliged, I assure you. I'll promise not to make a bit of trouble, either, because I sha'n't be there all the time, you know. My sketching commission will compel me to be out of the city four or five days out of every week, but I would like to have a place I could call ' home' on the odd two or three, and if you'll only say that I may— "I?" she interrupted, with a laugh. " Why, it's nob my home, Mr. Burleigh, and 1 haven't any voice in the matter.'' " Oh, yes, you have. She's uncommonly fond of you, is Mrs. McLoughlin, and if you'd only mention the subject to her when she gets over her fit of sickness and say that you would just as lief they would take me—and I hope that's true —why, I'm sure it would go a great way toward influencing her. Won't you, now? Please There'll be the hod-carrier — should say there'll be Mr. McLoughlin to represent the proprieties as the head of the house, you know, so there wouldn't be the least objectionable point to offer against taking a quiet, steady, humdrum young man us a boarder, I'm sure. I say, you'll ask her now, won't you ?" " Yes, I will ask her, certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Burleigh," responded Lorlie, growing a beautiful shade of rose-pink from brow to chin. " Will you delightedly. " That's awfull jolly, and I'm no end obliged to you, and— Oh, see here, Miss Lorlie ! I'll make a bargain with you. There's an immense demand on our paper for sketches from the pencils of young ladies, and if you'll get the McLoughlins to take me in as a boarder I'll teach you how to sketch, find a market for your drawings, and you can support yourself that way. Say you'll do it now— just say you will — and I'll be no end obliged, 'pon honour." The rose pink turned to vivid crimson as her eyes lifted and met his, then the shy lids fell and covered them, and then : " I'll try," she said, softly. It is good of you to take such interest in aiding me to earn a living, and— Good-night; I must go, Mr. Burleigh. There's little Mary Ellen crying again, and poor Bridget is so ill she cannot attend to her."

" Perdition seize little Mary Ellen—l wish I'd left ray watch in her mouth and plugged her up for the rest of the night!" thought Sir Lionel, as Miss McLoughlin opened her rosy lips and sent up a howl that would have paralysed a Kilkenny "at; but aloud he simply said : "Poor little thine, she seems in ;i bad way, and I suppose it would be heartless to keep you from her any longer ; and besides, there's somebody comingone ol the officers I think. Good-night, Miss Douglass, and success to your efforts in my behalf." " Good-night," she answered as she shyly laid her hand in his. Good-night, and plesant dreams, Mr. Burleigh !" Then, as he became conscious that he could not possibly find any excuse for holding that little hand in his a moment longer, he reluctantly released it, watched her as she fluttered away, turned with a sigh, and stepped over the rope which marked the deck privileges of the steerage passengers and found himself standing face to face with the purser. "'Good-night, Mr. Burleigh,'" repeated that worthy with a laugh and a wink. " I suppose it's to be that name at) this end of the vessel for the rest of the trip, isn't it, Sir Lionel ?"

"Yes, thank you, if you'll be so kind, Mr. Hardshaw, and in addition let this be kept from the saloon." "I'll look after that, Sir Lionel," he answered. " You can trust me. Why, Lord bless you, affairs of the-kind happen upon every trip. That's why I keep a stock of those circular cards. And as for keeping mum, you needn't have the least fear. Had just such another little beauty in the steerage on the last trip and young Lord Pengarn went stark raving mad over her, and although he was coming over to be married to an American heiress— " Your pardon !" interrupted Sir Lionel, stiffly. " They are not parallel cases by any means, Mr. Hardshaw. lam neither a coward nor a villain—Lord Pengarn was— and there's the difference. Good-night, sir !" Then with a frigid bow he stepped by the purser, stalked down the deck, made his way to the saloon staircase and there stopped with an exclamation of surprise. And well he might, for there, looking ghastly after her recent attack of seasickness, but with all a woman's determination not to lose the chance upon which she had staked her all, there in a pale, pensive attitude, Ignatia Dysart sat. " Still on deck, Sir Lionel?" she queried, lookine up (she had learned from his valet that ho was, or wild horses wouldn't have dragged her back you may be sure). " Why, I thought you had gone to bed ever so long ago." " And I thought that you had," t he answered, blandly. Do you think this is wise to como on deck again tc-night, Miss Dysart? It strikes me that a little rest would be much better." "Oh, dear, I couldn't stay in that wretched little stateroom upon such a night as this. lam quite well now, and shall remain on dcck for two or three hours yet. Won't you sit down ?" " Not to-night, thank you !" he answered, calmly. " Lovely view, isn't it? Good-night, Miss Dysart. I'm off to bed !" Then with a bow he walked past her, went down the staircase and left her sitting there shocked, stunned, pale with mortification and speechless with surprise. [To be continued.]

Mr. Harold Frederic cables to the New York Times these notes about a recent dinner at which Lord Tennyson and Mr. Gladstone both were present : — The Laureate is much broken by age and illness, and matches his physical decrepitude by a very obvious mental slowness. One felt all the while that he ought to be in bed rather than at the dinner table. Gladstone, on the contrary, was the life of the whole party, doing the most of the talking, yet finding time to eat heartily and with relish of every course, and drinking more champagne than anybody else. It was noted at the end of the dinner, after the coffee was finished, that Mr. Gladstone with a spoon took out all the sugar from the bottom of the cup and ate that too with the gusto of a schoolboy. Mdmr. Adeuna Pattx writes •—"I have found Peaks' Soap matchless for tho hands and complexion."—(Signed) Adelina Patti. Peaks' Soap for toilet and nursery. Specially prepared for the delicate skin of ladies and children, and others sensitive to the weather.

Honest. —For "Rood sterling value you cannot buy for money anything approaching Arthur Nathan's Teas, deny it who may. 2s and 2: 6d uer lb. One trial will convince.