IN APPLE BLOSSOM TIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19028, 27 May 1925, Page 7

IN APPLE BLOSSOM TIME.

. - .by: l. g. moberly.

Author of Clcajising Fires," "3>i the . .Balance,", Hope > My Wife.'' '' Violet Dunstjvu," etc.. etc. (Copyright). SX77OPSIK. Andrew, and Bvrlhu Delßton. si happy, though childless couple, entertain at their f'irrn,. Glcdg.tnniWk' Denis Brennington and Marjory Hende/son. The eouplo named I n<eouug in t the/ co.intry in appie blossom time, in lo\y, and plight their trotli under the apple trcc/.t. A telegram arrives for Brennington. . His father is very ill. The loveia are separated for far longer than they 1 anticipate., Denis, arriving home, learns i from his 'aister,'Sylvia, that their father is ! dead any.' their mother heart-broken. i Deni/ Brennington hears from the family doctor that Mr. Brennington's death was duo to /financial losses and business worries gp'.ierally. Herbert Martin, the family soliciror. arid Denis, go into the business affairs of the dead man, and find everything in a financial tanglo. Mr. Brennington fiad tried to redeem his business losses toy unwise speculations. This has led to hr/peless confusion, and the la,ying on his son's shoulders, a heavy burden of debt. Tho lawyer's suggestions for economy' arc not, entertained, and Mrs. Brennington wilfully HpJuses to consider money matters at all. IJer son expostulates; sho weeps. Denis Brennington tries to make his mother sec - the necessity for exercising economy in dress, etc. Finn 1!" he tells her she shall _ not be worried. Brother and sister decide to do the best they can. giving up argument with their mother as hopeless.. Marjory's aunt., Mrs. Creighton, takes an interest in her niece. Bhe tries to wean her from Denis Brennington. As Marjory is looking forward to a rather long engagement she decides to do some voluntary sorial work, fHer aunt jumps at the idea, telling her that Dr. Hugh Tranleigh is just the man to give her good advice, and she should consult him. CHAPTER IV.—(Continued). " I wonder whether I shall find all the little bits of things I do hero enough to fill my, life," sho said aloud, turning back to her aunt, who, already immersed in a novel, looked up with vacant eyes. "Fill your life? Oh, yes, my dear," she said, briskly, when her niece's meaning became. clear to her. "I'm sure there is plenty to do in such a go-ahead place as Merslake." " Plenty.to do—yes; but is it all worth doing'! Isn't, there something more I can do with my brain and energy than studying Browning, or hunting up quotations, or teaching in the Sunday school'! " Her words were vehement. There wa« an unusual restlessuess in her eyes and manner, and Mrs. Creighton loked perturbed. Sho disliked anything that troubled the placid surface of her "life; she had dug herself so deep into her groove that she had no wish to peer over its edges, even it she had not already lost the capacity for doing so. To consider seriously any questions outside the normal calmness of her existence produced something as near irritation as so lethargic a person could feel. " Well, my dear, -1 am sure you are most useful here. You are such a favourite with the other young people, too; and you liavo plenty of recreation and amusement." " But I can't, spend my whole life in nothing but amusement," Marjory's tones were exasperated. " You don't mean that, you want to go and work? " Mrs. Creighton dropped her book and her pincenez simultaneously, and looked at her niece with a sort of horror in her eyes which made Marjory laugh. " I don't want to go and do profes sional work for money, Aunt Alice. I have, enough .of. my own to live upon decently, and I think it is most unfair to work for money when you are not obliged to do it."

"Unfair. Why unfair?" " Because it seems to me that it is really taking the bread out of other people's mouths, when there arc so many women who need work—need it to get actual bread and butter, and a roof over their heads. A woman who can afford not to do paid work has no right to try and get it." " I see what you mean, and I daresay you are right, but what is it you want? If you are not satisfied with your life here, what kind of life would satisfy

you ? " . " Aunt Alice, don't think I am not satisfied in the sense of not being happy here—it isn't that. You have been so good to me, and life in Merslako is so pleasant. • But there seem to be so many things waiting for someone to do them. I want to use my life, not just let it rust away. There must somewhere be a furrow for me to plough. Life is too big to fritter away. I want to do something with it."

" Now that is exactly a subject on which Hugh Tranleigh could help you," Mrs. Creighton answered, with a return to the usual placidity. "He has all sorts of schemes for doing good in the world. And you are such friends that he would put you in the way of getting what you want. But I hope you won't leave Merslake, my dear, I should miss you very much."'

" I don't think there is the least chance of my leaving Merslake. It sometimes crosses my mind that I might perhaps find work at Brimpton." (She named a big, manufacturing centre, distant from Merslake about three-quarters of an hour train journey.) " Among the factory hands there I could perhaps find what I want. Your suggestion about Hugh is very good, Auntie. I'll have a talk with him. If Denis and I have to wait a great many years for each other, I feel I must throw myself into some real work. I can't potter and fritter any more."

" Ask Hugh to tea to-morrow. I am going to a whist-drive at the Dobson's, so you and he. could have a quiet chat. Probably he would have some suggestions to make." She reflected: "the more I throw them together the better. Propinquity Hoes wonders. This Brennington engagement is never likely to cotnc to anything."

Hugh Tranleigh was not wanting in suggestions, Marjory found, when, on the following afternoon, he sat at tea with her in the garden behind the house. He was a dark, good-looking man, who, having duly qualified as a doctor of medicino and worked sometime in Australia, had given up all idea of practising' when a godfather had left him a moderate but. sufficient fortune. From that moment he had devoted himself to bacteriology and kindred branches of medical science, giv ing all his spare time to social work. He -had bought a small property on the fringe of Merslake, and made hobbies of his garden, and his poultry, and his bees; spending a portion of his timo in London and Brimpton, but nevertheless throwing himself whole-heartedly into the interests of the tiny town of which he was a citizen. Friendship" and bon camaraderie had for some time characterised his relation to Marjory. If the news of Marjory's engagement had (as Mrs. Creighton surmised) been unwelcome to the young medical, man, he had made no sign outwardly* He had remained merely on the previous terms of friendship with the girl, and, to her appeal now he lent a ready ear. " Work 111 Brimpton!" ho exclaimed, when she explained that she needed more outlet for ' her energies than Merslake could provide. "Of course, there's workin Brimpton. , The place positively shrieks aJoud for voluntary workers. I* am not one of the people who tjespise the voluntary .worker," he added, t' as long as vou can got him or her to uWk conscientiously as well as voluntarily. ■ " Why, of course, if I undertook to do anything I should do it! " Marjory exclaimed indignantly. " I haveiVi the least atom of patience with people who say they will undertake a job and then begin with one consent to make excuse! " " It is those people who have given tho voluntary workers their bad name. The world imagines everybody who does unpaid work must necessarily bo tarred with tho same brush, happy-go-lucky, ignoring engagements. I don't for an instant believe that oven a speck from that brush has come near you."

I sl/)n.d hope not ! Whatever I ugrco tn do, X shall do,'it, even if something 'emitting does corne along and niako •lie 'vint tn throw tip the "work." "/You can pick and choose in Brimpton sort ol work yen would like." Trailr'figh looked thoughtfully at his companion.. Is it, to lie factory hands, or Cam , Committors, or Infant Welfaie, or what? j Or hoys' clubs ? Then? arc . plenty of fields whitening for haiwsi. so to speak, anil only waiting tor harvesters. Of course, I am chiefly doing things which help in my own research work." " I don't know yet just what I.do want, j Let Tijo think it over arid decide." You are going to-he in.. Met slake for .1 time ?" Tranleigh questioned. Tfie news' j of tho alteration in Marjory's engage- | ment had not vet reached the girl's friends i and acquaintances. . ' i "For a long time, T expect/' she met, i his glance bravely. " Mrf has losses, so that he will he obliged to take care of his mother, and sister, and our inaniago is indefinitely postponed. Of course, wo aie still engaged," slip went on quickly, moved to >ay the words; by the sudden gleam which shot, into her visitor's dark eyes, " I would not allow the engagement to be ended." " 'i'hat's awfully fino of you," tho man said gravely. "It may mean years of waiting." " It probably But surely I should be an odd sort of.'*;i v ;WOU)an if [ gave u]» the ni'aii I just becauso I I havj to wait ?"•».'' ' ' i " You wouldnT'be you," lie answered, I with a iipl very successful effort at speaking lightly. " I can't imagine your throwing, over anybody, least of all a, man yoUTcared to marry him." "Oh ! I don't, know ; I don't for a moment believe I am one of those women who would go on joying a person whatever they did or w&Ve. To me respect must go hand in hand with love." "Ye—es." Trahleigh's tones were hesitating, a curious- look swept over his face. "You mean you wouldn't easily forgive someone you cared for if they disappointed you riy s<pe moral lapse." " I can't imagine myself in' the first place caring for someone liable to moral lapses," Marjory laughed; Stooping, sho gathered into her hand some, crimson rose petals which had just fallen on tho grass, and then, missing the strange expression in her companion's oyes, she continued, " I simply must respect--"a man X really ,cnrc for—' My King must do no wrong.' " "You are demanding a good deal from .human nature, especially from masculino human nature. Wo arc frail enough when temptations come along." His voice was grave, - He. looked earnestly into tho girl's face. But her lips set in a curiously hard line, a line which her observant companion noticed.' . " Well, frail people are not my sort," she answered mutinously. "I don't wnnt to 'ove a man who needs be propped and be guided; a man who must be excused for frailties. I want somebody stronger' than myself, somebody to whom I can look up." " You want an idol on a pedestal," Tranleigh laughed, and then added seriously: " One always has to remember that even idols on pedestals may hava feet of clay. And —are we fair in expecting too much of human nature ?. Men. as well as, or more than, women, heed guiding and helping. They fall, even the best of. them, perhaps. But isn't it the woman's part to show them that: ' They fall to rise. Are baffled to fight better?' How many men have women's hands helped to their feet ?" He spoke with great earnestness, almost, with a note of pleading, but Marjory shook her head, and he saw that the lines of her mouth tightened. " I am not olio of those women," sho said, "my man must be firm on his feet. I don't want to liavo to drag him on to them. He is not to ho a kind of sack held together by me! No, respect, and love must go together. 'lt is the only way for me. 'My King must do no wrong.' " Tranleigh looked at her with a sudden and strange wistfulness in his eyes, which she, absorbed in her own thoughts, did not notice. He "- opened his lips as if to speak, then closed them again. Marjory began another sentence speaking with a sort of placid certainty which half amused, half irritated, her listener. "That is truly the way I feel abouf. it. 'My King must do no 'wrong.' I couldn't bear it if lie.did."' " But, my dear Miss Heiylerson, you | are asking for a paladin, not to say an archangel, instead of a mere human man. Won't you even allow 4 ; the man to have a few faults and failings to match your own ? Or are you hoping that, he will always think you perfect ?" "Of course not! But—what I mean is, he must be stronger than I. I must respect him; he must be miles and miles above me in every way." / ; " But you arc asking an impossibility." Tranleigh spoke with an earnestness which seemed, in a sense, out of proportion to the matter in hand. It was almost as though he himself were personally touched by the question—not as if it Were merely an abstract discussion, or -a discussion dealing with other people's affairs. " You mustn't expect us to ho immaculate, to be free from everything evil: after-all ' a man's a man, for a' that.' " " Yes, hut lie has to be.a good man if he wants me to go on caring for him," Marjory said, with her lips tightening again. "He must have high ideals and follow them. I have no use for men without principles and ideals!"" . A curious expression flashed into Tranleigh's eyes: there was something almost furtive in the way in which he looked at. her. But again she did not observe tho expression.

"We must, try to live up to expectations," he said, with an attempt at lightness. " I will do mv.best." (To bo continued daily.)