A MONTH'S LODGINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1893, 2 March 1888, Page 33

A MONTH'S LODGINGS.

"To let ? " said the agent. " Eeady furnished? For a month! Really, ladies, I'm very mush afraid I haven't any property in my hands— not at present, at least— that will meet your expectations. I've plenty of unfurnished houses, and plenty to rent for a year. But for a month? There isn't any such real estate in the market— there isn't, indeed." , "We don't wont an unfurnished house," said Angela Frost. 41 And we have no occasion to use a house for a year," added Josephine, her tall, blooming young sister. The agent bit the end of his quill pen, and looked at them dubiously from behind the ink-splashed rails of his desk. "We are school teachers," Miss Angela explained, "and we have just a month's vacation ; and we want to spend it in a healthful country resort, where I can botanise, and where my sister can sketch in water-colours from nature."

"Ah!" said the agent; "ahl indeed, I'm very sorry, ladies, but I don't think there's any property in the market hereabouts that will meet your ideas." "What time does the evening stage leave the hotel?" Josephine asked, rather despondently.

"At 5 o'clock, I believe," the agent replied. And the two ladies went slowly out of the stuffy little room, with its high desk, its floor covered with cheap oilcloth, and its general atmosphere of stale tobacco smoke. "I'm so sorry, Angela," said the younger. s "The air of these pinewood glens is the very thing for your asthma." " And the little river in the deep gorge is such an exquisite study for your paintings, Jo," said Miss Frost, fondly. " Couldn't we live in a barn ?" suggested Jo, with a comical arch of her eyebrows.

" I'm afraid not," sighed Angela. The real estate agent, in the meanwhile, had hardly smoked a pipe and read the local paper before the door burst open and a short, stont lady in a pink hat and feathers came in.

"Mr Muggeridge," said she, handing him a key, " you may let the Ivy Glen or you may sell it— ready furnished, with a cow, a poultryhouse, and a pony chaise thrown in." " Madam," said Muggeridge, bewildered. "lam tired of it," said the lady. " Susie and Jennie are homesick to get back to the city, and so am I. I've been without a servant since Monday, and now I'm going to take the evening stage to town and meet my husband before he starts for Ivy Glen. I dare say he'll be vexed, but I can't help it. And I've left word at the dairy farmhouse for my brother Duke to follow us." " You couldn't let it for a month 1" experimentally hazarded Mr Muggeridge. "I'd let it for three days," said the lady.

" I could find you tenants for a month," said the agent. " And perhaps at the end of that time something else might ofier." " Very well," said the lady. " There is tho key." And away she went ; and Mr Muggeridge clapped his hat on the back of his head and set off in hot haste to the hotel, for an interview with the two young ladies who had so recently left his office. And so it happened that Jo and Angela Frost took triumphant possession of Ivy Glen, a romantic cottage, half covered with the dark green, glossy leaves of the vine from which ifc derived its name, with a boudoir, piano, all the pictures garlanded with pressed ferns and dried autumn leaves, and a library of novels.

" Mrs Fitch must have been a very literary person," said Jo. " And musical," added Angela. "As tor a servant, one would only be a nuisance," said Jo.

" I'll groom the pony myself," said Angela. " He's no bigger than a Newfoundland dog — the darling."

" And I'll milk the cow and feed the dear little chickens," declared pretty Jo.

" It's really an earthly paradise," said the elder sister.

" So it is," assented Jo.

The two sisters passed three days of unmitigated happiness in the deep ravines and cool, flower-enamelled woods that surrounded Ivy Glen. Angela made various valuable additions to her herbarium, and Jo sketched leafy nooks, bits of falling water, and sunset effects to her heart's content until finally a good oldfashioned rainstorm set in, on a July afternoon, and prisoned them in the parlour.

" How stupid this is 1 " said Jo, starting up from her bookas the twilight shadows brooded darker and darker in the room. " Let's go down to the barn and talk to Dick and Frizzle. Poor dears ! They must be as lonesome as we are."

Now Dick was the pony, and Frizzle was the cow; and Jo and Angela were already upon the most affectionate terms of intimacy with them.

It was quite dark when Marmaduke Framingham opened the hall door and strode in, shaking the rain drops from his shoulders, as if he had been a huge Newfoundland dog, and flinging his fishing creel and tackle on the table.

" Lou !" he called, all over the house, in a cheery, stentorian voice— "Louisa!"

But, as might be expected, no answer was returned ; and he went up to a certain pretty little circular-walled room, where he had been wont to keep his slippers, gun-case, and sundry other masculine appurtenances, when sojourning with his sister, Mrs Fitch, at Ivy Glen.

" It's as quiet here," he muttered, under his breath, "as an enchanted castle. Where is Lou 7 — where are the children ?"

But he paused on the threshold. Even by the waning twilight he could perceive that a general transformation had taken place. A pretty easel stood near the window, the tall standards of the old-fashioned dressing bureau wore knotted with blue ribbons, the chairs were freshly draped with chintz, and a fairy work basket stood beside the sofa, while upon the table lay a flower-twined gipsy hat, a bunch of wild flowers, and a pair of the tiniest gauntlet gloves that Mr Framingham had ever set eyes upon. " Hello 1 " said Marmaduke ; " Lou's got girl company. And she's put 'em in here, by Jove !"

He struck a match, lighted the prettily painted candles in the brass scones, and stared blankly around him. At the same moment a clear, flute-like voice sounded below stairs.

" Come in, Angela, quick ! Goodness, how the rain drives in at the door ! What's this in the hall ? A— man's coat ! "

"Burglars!" shrieked Miss Angela, who was not as strong-minded in practice as she was in theory. "And there's a light upstairs!" cried Jo. "Preserve us!" said Angela, beginning to tremble, " the house is on fire ! Jo, Jo, don't stir a step ! I insist that you shall not go upstairs !" But Miss Josephine deftly evaded her sister's grasp, and rushed directly up to the little apartment which she had confiscated to her own xise.

"Who are you, sir?" she sternly demanded, as, standing "in the doorway, her gaze fell upon Mr Marmaduke Framingham. '• I—lI — I beg your pardon," began that gentleman.

"Leave the house!" said Jo, in the imperial accents of Queen Elizabeth condemning one of her courtiers to death.

"Jo, Jo, don't," pleaded Angela, who had crept up in her sister's shadow, aehd was now weakly tugging at her dress. " Perhaps he's got a band of accomplices outside— pei haps he's a crazy man I"

•" Ladies," said Mr Framingham, "if you will only permit mo to explain ■-" "Nothing can explain an intrusion like this." declared Josephine.

*;My sister, Mrs Fitch, the occupant of tbis house "

"We are the occupants of this house," inexorably interposed Miss Frost. " Mrs Fitch has left the premises these three days ago." " I assure you," said Marmaduke, " that I was quite ignorant of any such change of arrangement. I have been on a fishing excursion up the hill, and supposed, of course, that my sister was here " " I'm quite sure he is a crazy man !" interposed Angela, sotto voon. " And as it is such a stormy nighty I beg only to be allowed to pass the night in the barn," concluded tho supplicant. 11 Your sister left word for you at the dairy farm," said Jo, severely. " But I came around by the other road," said Mr Framinghara, abjectly. The humour of the thing was too much for Jo ; she burst out laughing. " Angela, do stop twiching, my dear," she said. " Yes, you may sleep in the "barn, Mr , Mr " " Framingham, ladies, at your service," said the disciple of Izaak Walton. "Mr Framingham, then," said Jo. " But you must have some tea with us first. lam going to cut some cold tongue, and Angela will make some fritters, and we have M, Blot's recipe for chocolate. I am really sorry that I mistook you for a burglar." " Or a crazy man," said Angela apologetically.

"And wo will entertain you as hospitably as in us lies," added Jo, with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. Mr Marmaduke Framingham was afterwards heard to say that he never spent so delightful an evening in his life. He engaged board at the dairy farm the next day, and instead of following his sister to the city, stayed down among the glens and braes. And when Josephine Frost's month of vacation had expired she went back to the city to resign her position in the grammar school.

" I am going to be married," she confessed, blushing very prettily, when the mistress asked the reason why. So Miss Angela Frost went on alone with her career in life, and Mrs Marmaduke Framingham settled down for life at Ivy Glen.

" For," said she, " I think it is the sweetest spot in the world." "So do I ! " said her young husband.