CONTINUED STORIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14925, 24 February 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

CONTINUED STORIES.

BY LOUISE EUGENIE PBIOKIIT.V

There is a fascination rbout continued stories. Have yon never been forced to wait an hour or so in dreary hotel or wait-ing-room when a chanco magazine of old date has beguiled your boredom? In the magazine you came across a continued story. You had not read the beginning, and fate would probably never place the end under your eyes. The story interested you and for awhile haunted you so that you found yourself. trying for your satisfaction to imagine a probable beginning or construct a suitable ending. If this is true with what you know to be fiction, how much more imperative is the demand of your curiosity when some fragment of real life that has come under your notice is concerned. I have several such unbegun and unfinished stories in my memory.

One day in a tram the vacant place beside me was taken by a lady." At her knee stood a child of about six years of age. He was a very handsome little- fellow with a well-shaped head crowned with dark brown curls. . His eyes, large and brown and shaded with long dark lashes, had the artless, innocent expression of his age. Presently a conversation ensued between him and his companion, and the unusual purport of* it attracted my attention.

" You are excited, Jack, aren't you, about seeing your little sister, Marianna?" began the lady in a pleasant voice.

" Yes, auntie dear," I thought the child replied, but could not bo sure the word was auntie, although he repeated it several times in the course of the conversation.

" She is three years old," continued the lady, " but I can't tell you how she looks, for I have never seen her. I know she is a good little girl though. You will love her, won't you, Jack?"

" Yes, auntie dear," said the child again, looking up with beautiful eyes that smiled. He said very little, but plainly followed the remarks of the lady with interest. ■•..-,■■

• "She may be shabbily dressed," went on i the lad}', "but you mustn't say anything to her about that. She hasn't had anyone to take care of her, so it isn't her fault. I shall get her some new things to wear of but I shall not be able to get them immediately, so remember not to appear to notice if her clothes do not look very well. - I am sure she is a nice little girl and will be good if she is trusted just as you are."

The child smiled as if pleased with the compliment. ' There was silence for a moment, and then the lady said, "You have been with me just three weeks, and you will be six years old in another month, and yet you cannot be persuaded to go to school. That won't, do.. I can't have a son of mine grow up a dunce. If you don't make up your mind I shall have to put' you in a boarding-school and only see you Saturdays and Sundays. You wouldn't like that,, would you?" - "I shouldn't like to leave you, auntie dear," said the child. "Yes, you are t«o young yet, but I shall have to decide ■on it, nevertheless if you are not more brave about-going to day-school. ..:... - .- * ' ./The tram, reached' the terminus at this juncture, and everyone descended and went their several ways." "I regretfully saw the lady going away holding the little boy's hand, and with her .went the end of my story in which I was by this time thoroughly interested. - Needless to say, I speculated long on what the lady's real relation was to the child. She had called him her son, yet he seemed to call her auntie. Why had he been with her only three weeks? Who was Marianna? Was she really his sister, and if so why had the lady never. seen her Why hadn't Marianna been well taken care of ? . From what old life was she being taken and into what new life was she being transplanted ? Fruitless but fascinating speculations. How I would have liked to have been present at the meeting and caught a glimpse of the shabby little Marianna, but at the tramway terminus the story inexorably ended- for me. It is to be continued but I shall doubtless never see another chapter of .it, and Jack and Marianna and the lady will probably live their lives in this old world without again touching elbows with me.

The scene of another chapter in another real. story was the interior/of ' a sleepingcar in a train that was groping its way at night along the coast of California after a flood, and in consequence, washouts were feared on the track. Opposite my section was that of a" little old lady who first attracted my attention by asking if she might sit in the seat with me while her bed was being made. "Certainly," I said, and'it was then that I was struck by her age and her youth. She was dressed to suit her age in silver grey alpaca with a rose-pink front in concession to her youth I think. She had a little grey bonnet with grey grasses and pink roses nodding on it.

As soon as she was seated by me, she gave me a playful little nudge 'and asked vivaciously, " Aren't you afraid?" I answered in the negative. " Well," said she, " I am having my bed made up, but I sha'n't go to sleep. I shall just lie there and pray for the engineer." "But the night is so long," I said, smiling. "Well," she rejoined, "I can draw the curtains by my bed and look out at the cities and the villages, the mountains, the rivers and the meadows passing by like a procession. It is curious how * solemn everything looks at night; the little villages look so. lonely, the cities so terrible, and the country so peaceful and yet so sad, it makes me think of cemeteries."

" Do you travel much ?" I asked. " No," she said with a gay little laugh. " This is really an adventure for me. It was all Cora Ellis's doing. You sco Cora Ellis used to live summers in the same village in Ohio that we did. Such a nice girl, as pretty as a flower, brown hair and blue eyes. I took such a fancy to her, but she got married and went to San Francisco to live. After that she was always writing back, " Come and see us. Don't worry about your things. Just get a neighbour to take oare of your chickens and your house plants and make the effort. It will bo worth it just to see the flowers growing here." I was afraid, for I had always depended on James. " He was my husband and the Presbyterian minister in our village. When I .died . I felt as if I had lost my backbone, and had gone down in "a heap. ' Non* sense,' said Cora Ellis. ' Just. assert yourself, and you will have the time of your life.' '1 am too old,' I told her." Here she threw in an arch aside : '"Could you guess my age?" I guessed ten years under the mark, and she'was delighted and triumphantly told me the real figure. "So," she continued, " I said to Cora Ellis,' I'm too old,' but Cora Ellis wouldn't hear of it. 'Pooh,' she said, 'you're only old outside. Inside you are more of a girl than I am. Now don't waste any more time, but come at once.". So I did, and I feel as if I must look different outside from what I did when I came, I've been so venturesome. There' was no resisting Cora Ellis. I've been iu automobiles', seen C"i;na Town, theatres, and dear knows what. I was always wondering how much it cost, but Cora Ellis is a rich woman and doesn't mind expense. The neighbours .would have opened their eyes if they could have seen me. I am

dying now to describe Cora Ellis's furniture to them. : They know she's rich, but they've no real, idea, of it. I picked ripe oranges off the trees. I never could get over their growing as commonly as apples. As for the flowers, Cora Ellis was right, I never saw so many in .my life. It was like a seed catalogue. The folks at home will want me to lecture about it when I get back, but I guess I shall never be independnt enough for that no matter what Cora Ellis says." She gave a merry infectious little laagh and then said as she prepared to leave me, " Cora Ellis put me on this train and arranged my things, and I shall not have any trouble if the engineer knows his- business* Did you see Cora Ellis?"

.no, l had not seen Cora Ellis, and how I regretted it as I looked at the eager old girl by my side and thought, of tne Ohio village and. James the , ministerial husband and the chickens and the geranium plants. What wouldn't I have given for a heart-to-heart glance of the eyes with Cora Ellis who was gentle and kindly and humorous and sentimental too—all these things sho must have added to the charm of ht-r blue eyes and brown hair. But I shall never tee her, not 1, for here the story was "to be continued."

In a French, -compartment car reserved for " Dailies seule " 1 met the heroine of another tale. She and I had the car to ourselves. The journey was long and naturally we fell to conversing. She was an American, and there was much in common between us. At length I spoke of the town from which 1 came, "i," said she with interest ".why, I know someone who lives there. Do you happen, to know Col. B?" "Yes," 1 answered. "I used quito often to see him. He was a rich man and highly respected in ¥."

"Was?" cried the lady plainly startled. . "Yes," I replied, "he died last winter. He was killed by a train while he was trying to rescue a child who had strayed on the track.. He was one of those 'heroes in plain clothes,' Emerson tells about, for we.had never guessed till then that he was of the,stuff tiiaU heroes arc made." '

- "Dead!" the lady exclaimed, and said'' no more for several minutes, during which \ time I looked at her face, which nitherto had impressed me as belonging to the ordinary colourless, prosaic type of middle- i aged faces on which" is too-plainly written' resignation to the' monotony ot life and the abandonment of adventure and romance as of brokan toys. Now instantly I re- i cognised something different in her face. It wa3 like a dull room suddenly lighted. The light awakened in it -a kind of faded beauty.

At length she looked up and said, " How odd that 1 should hear this from a stranger in a foreign country after so many years. He died, well, as I. should have expected of him. Did he leave any family?", "No," I told her, "his wife died a number of years ago, and there were no children.?'

I looked at her, I know, with, so much mute interest and astonishment in my face that she said quite as if I had asked the .question aloud, "We were engaged to ' be married years ■ ago ;< when he- and I were both very young.'' Further than this she did. not tell, * Indeed for the rest of the journey until our ways parted she seemed wrapped in thought and" looked steadily out of the window at the roads with their straight borders of ' trees' and poppy:' starred fields.' I was left to my own. reflections. What a romance I had unearthed— and Col. B. of all men- for the hero. Brusque in manner And reserved in speech, I remembered him well, but had no more suspected him of hidden romance than that ho had it in him to die the brave death he did. I. vaguely, recalled his wife's J thin and nervous face. What were the j details of Col. B's. romance? Why had he married No. 2 instead of No. 1, or— ! but useless to conjecture on these matters for his old sweetheart was taking i down her bags from the rack and presently bade me adieu. I was left .to continue >my journey alone except for the company of ray own thoughts and th© animated French voices that penetrated the walls between me and the' neighbouring compartment.