CHAPTER VIII.

Otago Witness, Issue 1427, 29 March 1879, Page 22

CHAPTER VIII.

"Fallen Among Thieves." Gay, cheery, and hopeful was the first letter Maurice Stretton sent home from the new country. Written chiefly on the voyage and finished in all the ardour and excitement of landing, it breathed of nothing but satisfaction with himself, his fellowtravellers, the world in general, and Dunedin in particular. Eveline read it, smiled, sighed, and smiled again. John read it, . frowned, smiled, and frowned again, and tossed it back to his sister. " Too good to be true, I fear," he muttered. " Maurice will never make a business man." " But see how ho makes friends, they will surely help him on, these fellowpassengers of whom he speaks." "Maurice is altogether too sanguine. I believe in the old axiom, ' count every man your enemy until he proves himself your friend.'" " And I hate it," cried Eva impulsively. "It is mean, and false, and unchristian, and more than all, it is absurd. , How can a man behave like a friend if you always treat him as an enemy ; it utterly contradicts your other favourite saying, ' give a dog a bad name and hang him.' " " Ah, well, time will show," said John with a provoking smile as he hurried off to his office. Eveline took up the long crossed letter and read it again, lingering over the last paragraph. "On the whole I enjoyed the voyage very much, and found my fellow-pas-sengers very agreeable, especially a young fellow named Ellis. He is not exactly what Eva calls a ' gentleman,' but he is an old Colonial, a real good fellow, and has promised to help me to get an appointment, or, as it is called out here, * a billet,' and I have no doubt he will do so. I do not expect anything very wonderful, indeed I shall take whatever turns up, bo I shall hope to tell you in my next that I am in harness, and beginning to get on." What waa there in this sentence to annoy John ? Eva could not tell, it seemed to her all that could be desired, Maurice was eager and willing to work, his new friends would help him. He would soon begin to make money, two years would quickly pass away, and then She kissed the signature, blushed at so, doing, and laid the letter in her desk. By the next mail came another. Still cheery, hopeful, and sanguine of future success, but Maurice had not yet buckled on the harness of which he spoke so enthusiastically. " I am lodging in the same house with Ellis. He is a capital fellow, knows all the best people in the place ; ho introduces me to all his friends, and I hope soon to get something through one or other of them. Influence seems to be everything out here. I bide my time, but I am not idle, for, as Ellis says, I am acquiring l Colonial experience.' " John Passmore frowned more heavily than before, and shook his head impatiently. "The boy's a fool," he murmured. "Does he think he has a fortune to invest, a hundred pounds won't go far in acquiring ' Colonial experience.' " But Eveline smiled and said, "He makes friends wherever he goes ; he will certainly get on." And the next letter appeared to confirm her prediction, for it was written in some haste, and said, "I have just been offered a good thing up country, and am off at once to secure | it. If it turns out half as good as we expect, I shall be a rich man in no time. Lucky speculations are the things we make money by in the Colonies." John Passmore read this third letter and made no comment. He watched Eva very closely, and saw the happy smile upon her lips, and the love light in her eyes ; he knew by a thousand trifling j signs that the girl loved Maurice, though by her silence he was equally well convinced that the young man had kept his promise, and that they were not positively pledged to each other, for then Eva would have spoken. Of the tacit understanding between them, John, of course, knew nothing, though he probably suspected its existence. But the sting lay in the fact that Eva loved Maurice, and judging her nature by his own, John felt that it was a love that would live, and he believed that Maurice was not worthy, of such love "Weak, vacillating, unstable,' easily led," such was John's verdict. " I would rather see her dead than married to such a man." But perhaps the successful merchant was not altogether an impartial judge of

the brilliant young emigrant, who had stolen the heart of his only sister, though with rare wisdom he carefully abstained from saying one word against her absent lover which could shock or pain her, for above all things he prized her love, and desired to keep it, "and if I abuse Maurice," he thought, "she will not be angry with him but with me ; women are so illogical." And well for us that they are, for if love were weighed and measured, and carefully portioned out according to merit, which of us would be content with his share ? John was wise in his generation, he read Maurice's third letter in silence, but perhaps Eveline herself scarcely looked with greater anxiety for the arrival of the next mail. It came in due course, but without bringing any news of the absent one. There was no New Zealand letter for John Passmore or his sister, and they knew not whether to attribute this silence to accident or neglect. John was one of those men who do not believe in preventable accidents. " Too late for post," "too late for the train," were excuses which always made him angry, and those who knew him but seldom cared to utter them in his presence. His idea was that Maurice, in the first flush of success, wa3 neglecting his 'old friends Ifiva found a thousand excuses for her lover, and did not lose her faith though months rolled on and brought no further intelligence. "I trust him," she said. "He will come back." In truth Maurice's silence sprang neither from carelessness nor design. Like the traveller in the Gospel "he had fallen among thieves."