BETTER THAN LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9040, 19 November 1892, Page 3 (Supplement)

BETTER THAN LIFE.

BY CHARLES GARVIOB, Author of "On Lore's Altar; or, A Fatal Fancy," "She Trusted Him," "Paid

, For," Elaine," etc.

CHAPTER XLll.—(Continued.) At this juncture the two persons so anxiously inquired for were Been coming slowly across the lawn.

" Those two are a standing reproof to all the rest of us," said Lady Starbrierhb, nodding ab them, "I always feel quite wicked in Saint Cecilia's company, and you must all of you feel shamefully useless and lazy in young Button's. Mow, I'll wager anything— baby's new coralthat they two have been talking aboub the new parish pump, or the village almshouses, or the Dorcas meetings."

" Yes," said Levondale, " whenever 1 see them together I tremble, for I know that Cis will be ab me presently with: 'Oh ! Laurence, dear, would you help us to rebuild the infant school ?' or, ' Laurence, have you noticed the really dreadful state those cottages in So-and-so Lane are in ? I'm off before they can catch me !"

But he stopped as Willie called oub: "Half a moment, will you, Levondale? Miss Dunbar wants to speak to you ?"

Cecilia came up with her placid smile, and after kissing the baby, turned to Levondale, with :

" Oh, Laurence, dear, about that gymnasium, you know!"

The group struggled hard and sucoeeded in suppressing their laughter, as Levondale glanced at them with an air of, " There I I told you so," , " Willie and I have been talking it over, and he thinks that one could very easily be pub up in the boys' schoolroom. It would nob cost much—not so very much— you know it is so important thab the boys should be taught to use their muscles. I think physical exercise is as necessary nowadays as mental, don't you ?" and she looked around the group with a sweet earnestness in her eyes which no one had ever been able to resist.

Bub this time her appeal was mot with a burst of laughter. She looked from one to the other with innocent surprise.

" What have I said that is so funny she asked, rather plaintively ; and, of course, they only laughed all the more.

" Don't mind them, Cis," said Ida, who had laughed as loud as the rest. " They are only teasing you. Of course you shall have the gymnasium; sha'n't she, Laurence ?"

"Of courae she shall !" he echoed, ironioally. " Did you ever know her fail to get anything she wanted ? I never did, and I've the best cause to remember. She shall have the gymnasium for the boys, certainly. But do you think that she'll be satisfied ? Not she ! I know her too well. You'll want a piano for each of the girls, and a basinebte for all the village children under six, and unlimited tea and tobacco and snuff for all the old men and women, and cottages rent free, with coals and candles chucked in." " And if she should, she will get them," put in Lady Starbright, shrewdly.

"I really think she would," said the vicar's quiet voice. He had sauntered up with his book, and stood beside Ida with his hand upon her shoulder. " What is it she wants now ?"

"Oh, only a gymnasium for the schoolboys," said Levondale, laughingly. "How much is it to cost, Cis ?"

" Willie thinks that forty or fifty pounds could pay for it," she said, simply, and standing all the chaff with the patience of a martyr. " You might do worse with your money," remarked Willie, joining in the discussion for the first time.

Levondale looked at him with a queer smile.

" Oh, indeed. Well, if yon say so, of course—l'll think about it. Now, go and get your gun and let us get away while I've a penny left." "I—l sha'n't shoot this morning," said Willie, struggling with a blush. " I'm going down to the school to take some measurements with Cocilia."

" Oh 1" said Lovondalo, with a repetition of the smile; and he and the other sportsmen started off.

In the afternoon, as Ida was sitting on the lawn, with the baby in her lap, and the tea-things on a little gipsy table in front of her, Cecilia came from the rose garden. Ida looked up in faint surprise. " I thought you had gone with the others for a drive," she said. "He is asleep," she added, looking down at the mite on her knees.

"I intended going," said Cecilia, seating herself beside Ida, " but Willie asked me to go and see the new barn he has just had built at the homo farm."

"1 see," said Ida, in a low voice. "It appears to mo, Cis, that you and Willie are inseparable. What a dear, good fellow he is!" she added, dreamily, as she recalled the past trouble and the loyal way in which he had stood by her and Laurence, helping them as none but a tried friend can help. " You—you are very fond of him, Ida?" said Ceoilia, softly. Ida laughed with faint surprise. " Fond of Willie Why, of course lam !" she exclaimed, still in a half-whisper, lest the precious one should be disturbed. " Next to my own, Willie stands nearest my heart. He has been more than a brother to me—to us—for I can spoak for Laurence." A warm colour crept into Cecilia's face and her head drooped. " Do you wish he were really your brother, Ida ?" she asked.

Ida stared at her, then her own face flushed, and a glad light began to dawn in her eyes. "Cis! Cis!" she whispered. "Do you mean—"

" Yes," murmured Cecilia, almost inaudibly. " Oh, I am so glad, so glad !" exclaimed Ida. "Come nearer—don't wake him, mind—and kiss me. Oh, Cis 1 to think of it! It makes me so happy ! And Laurence will be so glad, too ! But when—" " To-day—this morning," said Cecilia, still blushing and stealing her hand into Ida's. "He asked mo when we were down at the schools. He has gone now to find papa." Ida leaned forward and kissed her again, then she laughed a happy laugh. "It is very foolish of me to lot you take me by surprise, Cis," she said, after a moment or two, "for I might have guessed that it was coming long ago."

" Guessed it," said Cecilia. " Oh, no 1"

" Oh, yea, Miss Demure 1" retorted Ida. " lb was the day he came up to London unexpectedly. I remember now that when be told us he had been down here and seen you that, as he mentioned your name, he mushed and stammered in his old way. Bub," she went on, quietly, " I was too full of trouble to notice anything very acutely just then. Oh, to think of having Willie for one's real brother! Cis, if I weren't afraid of making you vain"she could nob help laughing at the idea of the existence of vanity in the saintly Cecilia—" I should remark that, of all the women I know, you are the only one who is at all worthy of him. Mind, I don'b say that you are quite, bub you are more nearly than any other. There ! baby's awake now. I've woko him laughing. Oh, Cis, if you are only one-tenth as happy as I am !" she exclaimed, pressing her darling to her, with the tears suddenly welling up in her eyes. Lovondale was delighted at the news, and declared that nothing short of a big dinner-party would express the general satisfaction.

It was the largest dinner-party that had ever been held in Levondale, and all the county families came. " Quite a gathering of all the clans, and one over," remarked Bobby, who came down from London for the occasion, and for a week's shooting afterward. Nob only did all the invited pub in an appearance, bub the Porlaines brought an uninvited guest, no other than Lord Richmore.

" I'm sure you'll forgive him for such a breach of etiquotbe, dear Lady Levondale," said Lady Porlaine ; " bub he only came home— quite unexpectedlylast night, and was so anxious to come."'

" Why, I am delighted 1" said Ida, giving him her hand, and blushing with all the old frankness ; and she called to Levondale : " Laurence, here is Lord Bichmore. Is it nob kind of him ?"

They all made him welcome, making quite a fuss over him, as Bobby declared.

The young fellow was immensely improved by his travels, and in the beat of spirits. Though it was quite evident thab he had got over his passion for Idaor asouredly he would nob have volunteered to come to Levondale that dayhis glance rested on her lovely face with now and again a pensive little wilfulness. He was as brown as a gipsy, and full of anecdotes and stories of his journeyings, to which the whole table listened with the respect due to so great a traveller.

After the ladies had left the room and the Levondale port had been brought in, Levondale signed to him to take a vacant chair next him and encouraged him to continue his account of his experiences. •'There is nothing an old globe-trotter enjoys more than hearing the stories the younger ones have to toll. I know all the ground you have been over, Richmore." "I suppose so," said Richmore. "Did you go Mexico way, Levondale?" Levondale nodded. "Tell us about Mexico," said Bobby, who had been an eager listener; and he drew his chair nearer and sipped his port with pleasant anticipation. Richmore laughed. "1 don't know that there is anything to tell," he said. "iMothing happened to me there that was out of the way. Oh, yes by the bye, I saw something that doesn't happen very often nowadays, though I suppose it was frequent enough in your time, Levondale." " What was that?" inquired Levondale. Everybody listened intently. " A case of lynching," said Richmore. "It was an out-of-the-way place, just a townleb full of rough fellows. The nighb I arrived they were all in a kind of ferment. It seemed that one of them, an Englishman, I am ashamed to say, had been detected in somo mean piece of scoundrelism—' not the first he had committed in the district, by the way—and the vigilance men had determined to make an example of him."

Richmore filled his glass and drank some wine before continuing. "I wish I'd arrived a day later," he said, gravely. "It was an awful sight, and I shall never forgeb the face of the miserable wretch as they hemmed him in and bound him—right in front of the tree, with the rope hanging from it. He was dead in a minute or so, I dare say, but it seemed ages to me while he hung there struggling." He shuddered and raised his glass with the laugh with which a man always tries to cover his emotion.

"An Englishman? that's bad," said Bobby. "Yes," said Richmore. "Bub he deserved all he got. ' From all I heard, I should say he was the meanest kind of rogue. His name was Swayne—" Levondale started and his face went pale. Then he recovered himself. " Will anyone take any more wine?" he said. " Shall we go into the drawingroom ?" and as they gob up he linked his arm in Hichmore's.

" I'm very glad to see you, Richmore," he said, in the manner and voice which most men found irresistible. " That story of yours about the man Swayne, you won'b tell ib to the ladies ?" Richmore laughed. "Not likely, he said, with some surprise at the question, Levondale nodded.

" I knew the man," he said, gravely, " and I'm afraid he only gob his deserts." *' You knew him !" exclaimed Richmore under his breath. " Yes," said Levondale, absently he was thinking not of Swayne, but of Judith. " Yes," and to himself he added, reverently, "' Vengeance is mine 1' "'

[THE END.]