Mrs Partington at the Soldier's Fair.

Otago Witness, Issue 1582, 18 March 1882, Page 29

Mrs Partington at the Soldier's Fair.

Mrs Partington sat at the refectory table, her face radiant with satisfaction, her bonnet hanging by its strings from the baok of her chair, and her benevolent spectacles contemplating the surroundings. j ' What will you be helped to,' whispered a : gentle voice in her ear. j ' Thank you, dear, for your polite attenuation,' she replied, looking benignly upon the charmingattendant ; ' I will take, if you, please, a cup of oblong tea, with milk and sugar— not too sweet— and if you will be sure that it is not made of the eelymosinary water, that the doctor wrote about, I shall be much obliged.' • How are you enjoying the Fair V asked Dr Spooner, as he dropped into a vacant chair alongside of her, somewhat to her surprise. ' I dare say,' said she, as the scanned the list i of delicacies lying before her, ' that I shall enjoy it with my tea. When one is decomposed by walking there is nothing like a cupof tea to' restore the equal-abraham, and here is enough to saturate the appetite and give strength' to the exasparated limbs. This is different, Doctor, from the poor soldier's fare, with only hard tactics and the long roll to sustain them, to say nothing of the avalanches ; and how they could stand it, it is hard to see.' 1 1 meant by my inquiry,' said he, *to learn how you were enjoying the Fair— the "Bazaar" j —designed to secure a home for disabled veto- i rans.'

'Ah 1' she replied, with a fervour that seemed to add to the exhalation from the decoction now set before her ; 'it is a grand display of patriotism and donation for those who helped us in our hour of need, when cotton cloth was sixty cents a yard, and sugar thirty-three ; and it has my warm corporation.' She went out with the Doctor, and made him interest himself in many schemes for swelling the fund. — The Sword and the Pen.