SHORT STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13852, 11 September 1908, Page 3

SHORT STORY.

FANNY'S FAILING.

A cnKKRFHL room, with a bay window full of blossoming plants; a bright fire burning behind a burnished grate; a soft carpet, the Eofr., velvety pi]*; of which was shaded in blue and wood colours, to correspond with the damask-coloured furniture, and a little gilded clock, which had just, struck mine at night. -All these things met Mrs. Chickerly's eyes us she laid down hpr book and yawned as widely as her ripe, cherry mouth would admit. She wss a plump, fair-faced young matron of some four or five and twenty, with bright auburn hair, soft blue eyes, and a complexion whose roses stood in need of no artificial rouge fo heighten their charms, while her dress of soft crimson merino was exquisitely adapted to her semi-blonde style. "Funny." said Mr. Chickerly, looking up from his newspaper, "did you call «.n those Carter to-day?" " No. J never thought of it." " And they leave town to-morrow morning, and Carter is absurdly sensitive to all slights, fancied or real. Fanny, I desired you to make a point of calling." " Well, I did intend to," pouted Mrs. Chickerly; "(but one can't think of everything." i "You cannot, it seems!" "It appears to mc you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill," she said, rather tartly. "It may affect my business very seriously. Carter's house carries great influence with it." Mrs. Chickerly was silent, patting the velvet carpet with her foot in a manner that indicated some annoyance. " I shall have to leave very early to-mor-row morning," said her husband presently. "To go to Scenersville about Aunt Elizabeth's will?" "Yes." "Oh, I wouldn't, Frank." " Why not''" " It's such bitterly cold weather to travel in, and Aunt Elizabeth is such a whimsical old woman, it's as likely as not that she'll change her mind about making a will when you get there. I would wait a little if I were yon." Mr. Chickerly smiled. "That would be your system of doing things, but not mine." "My system, Frank? What do you mean':'' " I mean that you believe in putting things off indefinitely, and riot, always in the wisest manner. 1 wish you would break yourself of that habit. Believe me, it will some (lav bring you to grief." Mrs. Chickerly contracted her eyebrows. " I don't believe in being lectured, Frank." " And I don't very often lecture you, my dear. Pray give me credit for thatl "You didn't think you were marrying an angel when you took me, I hope?" "No, my love. I thought I was marrying a very pretty little girl, whose faults might easily be corrected." "Faults I Have I any great faults, Frank?" " Little faults may sometimes entail great consequences." "If you scold any more I shall go out of the room!" "You need not, for T am going myself to pack my valise. By the way, there's a button off the shirt I want to wear to-morrow. I wish you would come upstairs and sew it on for me." " I will presently." "Why can't you come now?" "I just want to finish this book. There's i only one more chapter." tanny opened her volume so resolutely that her husband thought it beat not to con- I test- the question, I

Sitting all alone before the bright fire, Mrs. Chickerly gradually grew drowsy, and before she knew it she had drifted off into the shadowy region of dreamland. She was roused by the clock striking eleven.

"Dear me, how late it is!" she thought, with a littlo start. " I must go upstairs immediately. "There, I forgot to tell the cook about having breakfast at five to-morrow morning, and, of course, she's in bed and asleep by this time. I'll be up early enough to see to it myself. That will bo just as well." Laying this salve on her conscience, Mrs. Chickerly turned off the gas and crept drowsily up the stairs.

"Fanny, Fanny! it's past five, and cook hasn't come downstairs yet. Are you sure you spoke to her last night?" Mrs. Chickerly rubbed her eye 3 and looked sleepily around. "Oh, Frank, I forgot all about speaking to her last night," she said, with consciousstricken face; "but I'll run up. She can have breakfast ready in a very few minutes." She sprang out of bed, thrust her feet into a pair of silk-lined slippers, and threw a shawl about her shoulders. Mr. Chickerly bit his lip, and checked her. "No need, Fanny," he said, a littlo bitterly. 'I must leave the house in fifteen minutes, or miss the only through train. It's of no use speaking to cook now!" "I am so sorry, Frank!" Mr. Chickerly did not answer. Ho was apparently absorbed in turning over the various articles in his bureau, while Fanny sat shivering on the edge of the bed, cogitating how hard it was for her husband to start on a long journey that bitter morning without any breakfast. "I can mako a cup of coffee myself over the gas stove!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet; but Mr. Chickerly again interposed. '* Sit down, Fanny, please! I , would rather have you sew this button on the neck of my shirt. I have packed the others--those that are fit to wear. I havo shirts enough, but not ono in repair!" Fanny crimsoned, ns she remembered how often in the course of the last month or two she had solemnly promised herself to devote a day to tho much-needed renovation of* her husband's shirts.

She looked around for her thimble. "I left it downstairs last night. I'll get it in a minute." The housemaid had just kindled a fire in the sitting-room grate. It was blazing and crackling cheerily among the fresh coal, and Funny could not resist the temptation of waiting a moment to warm her chilled fingers and watch the greenish-purple spires of flame shoot merrily up, until she heard her husband's voice calling her imperatively : "Fanny, Fanny! What are you doing?" "Oh, dear!" thought his wife, as she ran upstairs, "I wish Frank wouldn't be so cross! He's always in a hurry!" Mrs. Chickerly never paused to think that the real reason was that she, his wife, was '* never in a hurry." Tho needle threaded, the thimblo fitted on, an appropriate button was next to be selected. i

" Oh, dear Frank, I haven't one the right size!"

" Sew on what you have, then; but be quick!" But Fanny was quite certain there was just the right button somewhere in her work-basket, and stopped to search for it. "There, I told yon so!" she cried, triumphantly, holding it up on the end of her needle. "Well, well, sew it on, quick said Mr. Chickerly, glancing nervously at his watch. "That's just, your worrying way, Frank! As if anyone could sew on a button well in a hurry! There, my needle has become unthreaded !"

"Oh. Fanny. Fanny!" sighed her husband, fairly out of patience at last, "why didn't you do it last night, as J begged of you! I shall miss'the train, and what little chance wo had of a place in Aunt Elizabeth's will will bo sacrificed to your miserable habit of always being behindhand!" Fanny gave him the shirt and began to whimper a little; but Mr. Chickerly had neither the time nor the inclination to pause to soothe her petulant manifestation of grief. Ho finished his dressing, caught up his valise, with a hurriedly spoken "Good-bye!" and ran downstairs two steps at a time into the street.

"There he goes," murmured Fanny, "and he's son<' away cross with me, and all for nothing but a miserable button. 1 wish there wasn't such a thing as a button in the world:"

Mrs. Ohiekerly was sitting down to her little dinner, with a daintily-browned chicken, a. tumbler of currant jelly, a curly hunch of celery ranged before her, when, to her surprise, the door opened, and in walketi her iord and master. " Why, Frank, where on earth did you come from?" cried the astonished wife.

"From the office," very coolly answered Mr. Chickerly. "But I thought you were off for Scenersville i:i a hurry!" " I found myself just five minutes too late, after having rim ail the way to the station.'

Ufa, that was really too bad!" Chicksriy smiled a little as ho began to carve the chicken.

'Yes, I wan a littlo annoyed at first; it did seem rather provoking to be kept at homo by only a shirt button." "What are you going to do?" "Why. I shall mako a second start tomorrow."

"11l see that your breakfast is ready this time to the second, and all your garments in trim," said Fanny, rather relieved at the prospect of a chance of retrieving her character.

"•• ou need not. I have engaged a room in the hotel near the station. 1 can't run any more risks." He did not speak unkindly, and yet Fanny felt that he was deeply displeased with her. " But, Frank"

" We will not discuss the matter any further, my doar, if you please. I have resolved to say nothing to you any more about reforms. I see it is useless, and only tends to foster an unpleasant state of feeling between us. Shall I help you to some macaroni?"

Fairly silenced, Fanny ate her dinner with what appetite was left her.

Three days afterward Mr. Chickerly once more made his entrance just at dusk, valisn in hart.!, while Fanny sat enjoying the ruddy light of the grate fire and the consciousness of having performed her duty, in the mending and general renovation of her husband's clrawerfnls of shirts— job which she had long since been dreading and postponing. '" Well, how is Aunt Elizabeth?" questioned Mrs. Chickerly, when her husband, duly welcomed and greeted, had seated himself in the opposite easy-chair. '" Dead," was the brief reply. Dead ! Oh, Frank ! Oh, her old enemy —apoplexy? .',' Yes." " Was her will made?" "it was. Apparently she had expected me on the. day she appointed, and, on my non-arrival on the only train that stops at Seenersville, she sent for the village lawyer, made her will, and left all her property to the orphan asylum at Scenersville, with a few bitter words to tho effect that the neglect of her only living nephew had induced her, on the moment, to alter her original int.ntion of leaving it to him. She died the next morning." From that day Mrs. Chickerly set herself resolutely to work to uproot the rank weeds growing in the garden of her life; and she succeeded, as we may do when we resolve to do the wise thing.