WHEN ELSIE WAS FOUND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1715, 11 January 1905, Page 64

WHEN ELSIE WAS FOUND.

(By Epos W. Sargent, in the “Boston Globe.”) “I beg your pardon,” said a tiny voice, “but I’m lost.” Thurston sprang to his feet with an exclamation. “Bless my heart!” he cried, looking down with surprise at the dainty little mite of humanity before him. “We will have to stop that.” “If you please,” she said, primly, “I don’t want it stopped! I got lost on purpose. I don’t want to be found too quick.” “But what will yo-ur mother say?” he demanded, when speech was again permitted him. “Oh,” she said comfortably, “she’ll probably say, ‘ There’s that Elsie runned away again.’” “So your name’s Elsie,” he said, catching at the hint. “What’s your last name?” She eyed him shrewdly. “I des did ten you I didn’t want to' be found too quick,” she said. “If I tell, you’ll know.” There was no denying this logic. Harvey looked hopelessly at his uninvited guest. She could not be more than five or six, and, judging from her dainty garments, she was of a good family, much too good to he residents of the little beach colony. And yet Thurston had selected his bungalow precisely because of its freedom from the proximity of the fashionable hotels further north. More than this, it was the fag end of the season, and most of the big hostelries had closed. He looked hopelessly along the beach. No one he knew was down on the sands. Already the nights had begun to be more than chilly, and only a desire to finish his book had led him to remain.

“I don’t see' what we can do about it, ELsio,’' he said, puzzled. “I’m about the only one left here, and I—l’m—er I’m not very used to little girls,” he concluded lamely. “I won’t mind if you work,” she said reassuringly. “I’m used to it,” eyeing the somewhat rusty typewriter with a half-filled sheet in the carriage. “My mama does those thing, too.”

Thurston gasped. Stenography must be a paying business if a typewriter’s (laughter could afford to dress like Elsie. He looked at her in wonder until she recalled linn.

“You can give me a piece of bread and sugar,” she suggested, “and I’ll go on the beach for awhile. I was in a house like this onoe, and they had very nice brown sugar; it’s the nicest on bread, you know.” Thurston rummaged in the tiny pantry, upset by bachelor housekeeping, until he found some brown sugar left over from a fudge party lie had given when his sister visited lnm.

Supplied with two slices, plentifully spread, irisie departed for the beach and Thurston weut back to his work, pausing every li» } while to make certain that the golden head was still in s.ght. There was something most comforting in the thought of this little

child playing about- the yard. It was almost like the home he had fancied. She cam© in when she saw that he was preparing to get dinner, and, perched upon a kitchen chair, gravely superintended the operation. Thurston preferred housekeeping to the trouble of a servant, and he jvas clever at the more simple dishes. It was not an elaborate fare, but Elsie was hungry and was graciously pleased to be complimentary. “I wish,” she said, as the last mouthful disappeared and Thurston was lighting his pipe, “that you was married to my mama. You see, she is too busy to keep house, and it’s no fun boarding. You could keep house and mama could earn the living, and we’d all like it.

“Mama often says she wishes she had time to take a house, but servants are awful bad. We had one once, and she drank.” The little voice dropped to an awed whisper. “That was the last on© w© had. They took her away in a black waggon, with two' policemen sitting in it. Then we boarded. Wouldn’t you like to marry my mama and keep house for her?”

Thurston lay back and roared at the suggestion. The idea of Harvey Thurston, who was regarded as one of the coming writers, abandoning his career to keep house for a typewriter was too much for his risibles.

Elsie, offended, rose to her feet. “I’m sure,” she said, “you needn’t laugh. Lots and lots want to keep lion so for my mama, but sli© says no. They aren’t as nice as you were, though.” There was a hurt accent to the “you were” that brought Thurston, penitent, to his feet. “It wasn’t that, dear,” he said, as he swung her to- his knee. “I’m sure I’d very, very much like to marry your mama.”

“I don’t quite know,” she said musingly, “you would let me live with you, wouldn’t you ?” “Certainly,” he said tenderly; “why not ?”

“You -see,” she explained, “there was a man, a long time ago, wanted to marry my mama, but he wouldn’t because I was a baby, and he didn’t like children, he said. He wrote things like you and mama, and he said I’d have to go to my grandmama because he couldn’t write with me around.”

“Is your mama Mrs Tliorndyke?” he asked in a curiously tense voice. She gave a little cry of disappointment. “Now, you’ve gone and spoiled it all,” she declared. “How did you know ?” For a moment Thurston was silent. He could not tell this little child that for four years h© had lived a loveless life because he had asked the woman he loved to sacrifice her little daughter to his career. He had vaguely thought she, too, had found success as a writer, hub he had never met her. For answer he caught th© child up. “Come,” he said, as he locked the bungalow door, “I, too, am lost; help me to find myself.”

And through the afternoon sun the two trudged across the sand dunes with a common destination, one regretting that she had found, the man fearful that he had found himself too late.