THE ADVENTURES OF ALICIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12908, 3 July 1905, Page 3

THE ADVENTURES OF ALICIA.

[•PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL AEKANGEHENT.]

■ • BY KATHARINE 'TYNAN, Anther of "A Bed, Bed Rose," "The Dear Irish Girl," " That Sweet Enemy, • "The Handsome Brandons," "A Daughter of the Fields," Etc., Etc.

1 [COPYRIGHT.]

SYNOPSIS OP PREVIOUS CEAPTEBS.

Chapters I.' and 11.-The story opens in an Irish home. Alicia MacNamara is disconsolate m having to leave her country in order to earn n.r living in England. Her sister Molly, lories at it from a common-sense point, and advises uer sister to give up her cousin, Carew MacNamara. Their Aunt Sib is anxious that Alicia 8 OUtnt should do justice to her people. Colonel MacNamara, the father, tells them that he has been asked to reduco the rent of another tenant-a common occurrence. Mrs. "V'enables, Alicia b English aunt, discusses family matters with ner Irish niece, and relates an instance, now Ion? past, of a certain lady's devotion to Colonel MacNamara. This lady is Miss Luttrell, a woman of means. Alicia spends a week in Mrs. venables 1 home in Bath before she goes on to the Heseitines, where she is to be companion. One evening Mrs. Venables announces that she expects company for dinner. One of the guests is Tom Heseltine, and the other Charlotte Luttrell.

1 CHAPTER 111. ALICIA SINGS. Ton Heseltine did not shine in conversation, although Mrs. Venables seemed painfully anxious to draw him out, to applaud his sentiments, to treat him altogether as a person of much consideration. On the whole it was not a brilliant entertainment. Alicia, in congenial surroundings could dimple and sparkle and make humorous sallies, and bo the occasion of wit in others by the delightful encouragement her laughter afforded. But here it was another matter. Why, she had not made a single joke during the years and years that made up the >veek siuce she had left dear Mount MacNamara-, except those she had committed to paper, deliberate jokes, written down with unsmiling eyes and mouth, lest papa or Aunt Sib would think she was unhappy and feel that they must recall her. Of course she must not be recalled. The salary the Heseltinea were to pay her, a hundred a year, seemed a) great deal to Alicia. She meant to send home nearly the whole of it; and it would fill a good many gaps in the comforts of life at Mount MacNamara. Then she was pleasing Aunt Grace. While she had , wondered ail this dreary week at herself for a stock and a stone, Aunt Grace had been pleased with her, yes, even when she had been speaking her mind most plainly. And she knew papa was anxious that Aunt Grace should be pleased. Besides, she might at? well make up her mind to a dull life for the future. With the arrogance of the Anglo-Celt she had decided that life in England must bo necessarily dull. There had been no dulness in all the happy, irresponsible twenty-one yeans of her life, despite the. ever present" need of money. Well, she had left all that behind now. She had made up her mind to be dull, so that she might send them homo that hundred pounds' a year and please Aunt Grace. And some time deliverance would come. Carew would be her knight who would hew his way to her through all these dull glooms of an alien prosperity, and would deliver her, some day. She left to Mrs. Venables the task of entertaining Torn Heseltine, which, truth to tell, was a somewhat laboured one. Already she had discovered that an Englishman, or an Englishwoman for the matter of that, is capable of sitting silent through ail one evening unless the impulse, to speak comes naturally. That'was something Alicia could not have done, She would have

flung herself into the abhorrent silence if neoeseary, but as it happened it was not necessary. The dinner was eaten at a round table, Alicia's left-hand neighbour being Miss Luttrell, and Alicia glaneea at .her with some curiosity when she could do so unobserved. She felt that it made a bond of union between them that many, years. ago Miss Luttroll had been fascinated by, papa l . That was something which did not surprise Alicia. . Papa was the finest of fine gentlemen. If Alicia had not found Carew, who was just such another as papa, she could never have fallen in love, she said to herself.;, having set herself such a standard as papa.' Miss Luttrell was distinctly plain-look-ing. Her fine brown hair had streak of grey in it. Even the old lace she wore gave her no distinction. On the other hand she had beautiful eyes. Her smile revealed an unsuspected sweetness. "She looks good, good," said Alicia to herself; and repeated the commendation in the bit she added to her Indian letter when she had gone. to her room for the night. "I hope your father is quite well," Miss Luttrell said, turning to her as soon as they had settled down in their places. " I used to meet him a long me ago. You are very like him." Alicia flushed with pleasure. "I love to be like him," she said in a soft fervour. "I adore papa." "He was a very charming person then, I remember," Miss Luttrell".went on; "he fascinated us all. Yon were little children then. It was soon after your mother's death." "I remember papa' being away at Aunt Grace's quite well. I was nine rears old. We missed him dreadfully, He hardly ever went away. My earliest memory of him is as a playmate in the nursery." "Ah !" The little exclamation was a lingering one. "Do you know I have never been in your beautiful country? I have often wished to go." "You should go. And be sure and go and stay at Mount MacNamara. Papa would expect it. You won't see any scenery much more beautiful than the country about there. The society is very pleasant, too. Plenty of fun always going, on, although we've no money." "You will find us—duller." Miss Luttrell looked sympathetically at Alicia's bright face, eager "now that she had begun, to talk about home to an interested listener.

"I daresay you'd find us awfully racketty," Alicia responded handsomely. " I wonder if you would come to me for a little bit and nob find it too dull?" Miss Luttrell said wistfully. "Perhaps Mrs. Venabks could spare you. My house- is about six milee from Bath. It 'is a pretty place, although it will not look its best for a couple of months'yet." " Oh!" said Alicia, the colour coming and going in her cheeks as it did when she was pleased. " I should love to. Only you see I'm going away to-morrow." . ~ , - "What a short visit!" Miss Luitrell's face had fallen and her voice had a bound of disappointment. ' "You sea I am only passing through," said Alicia, Then she touched Miss Lufctrell's hand caressingly. "I will tell you about it later." Turning away she found that her aunt was in the midst of an apparently interminable story to which Mr. Heseltine was listening with an air of interest. As a matter of. fact, he had barely had time to avert his eyes from her own face, at which they had been staring in a fascinated way. Alicia was silent for a few moments wliile Mrs. Venables finished her story, and during these few moments came to a rapid conclusion as was the way with her. "If he's ugly he's honest," she said to herself. "And he is very nice to Aunt Grace. I can, quite see why she likes him." Indeed for this one evening Mrs. Venables was unwonterlly amiable. ' The presence of young. Heseltine seemed to exercise a beneficent influence over her. She was apparently highly pleased about something, and presently she diverted theconversation to Mount MacNamara and Alicia's family and their doings, somewhat to Alicia's bewilderment. • Mrs, Venables' references to the MacNamara family, and to their country generally, had been wont to be critical, to say the leart of it. Alicia had winced under it, but had borne it belter than might have been expected. She had learnt to take her father's tolerant, humorous view of Aunt Grace. "After all,", he had said cheerfully. "I can understand how we should be a shock to her. She has been accustomed to order and spick-and-span ways all her life, and we are slatternly, there's no doubt of it; hopelessly slatternly." "Except you, papa." Alicia had protested. "You're shabby, but you're always beautifully clean and'tidv." "I learnt that in the army," the colonel said. "But I couldn't transmit it to my , cbildrau. And to be sure the house is hope-

lessly out-at-elbows. If Grace had to live in a house so dilapidated as Mount MacNamara, with no money to set it straight, she'd have to putup with it, just to put up with it." Now to her amazement Alicia heard her aunt talk of Mount MacNamara with an air of respect, not to say of awe. She brought into the conversation Donough Mac Con Mara, who had been killed at the Battle of Clontarf, a person on whose existence she had hitherto cast doubts. She even referred to Carew as the MacNamara, a title which made Mr. Heseltine stare. She talked of visits of hers to Mount MacNamara, and managed to get in a good many titles, and an impression of many carriages and horses, great gardens, in fact ail the appurtenances of wealth.

"All! She wants to impress Mr. Heseltine," Alicia thought, and looked across at the young man with eyes as honest as his own.

(To no continued daily.)