EQUAL TO THE OCCASION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2080, 4 January 1894, Page 41

EQUAL TO THE OCCASION.

By S. 0. 0.

"Hello, Marsden, where are you bound for?" » By Jove ! Smith, what are you doing down here 1 I am just going up to Wellington, and fully expected to see you up there."

"S3 you will, old fellow, if you are going up by this steamer, for I am. just returning home from Danedio."

! The speakers had met on the deck of the s.s. Takapuna, as she lay alongside the wharf I at Lyttelton, and were delighted at the prosf pect of each other's company on the trip. After they had been conversing for some I time Marsden remarked, "By the bye, do I you ever see anything of Lyle now 1 How's 'he getting on?" " Oh," replied the other, " he's just knocking along in the same old calm, unconcerned way. Aa usual, he never allows anything to worry him. Did you ever hear of the narrow squeak he had of marrying Miss Fosby 1 " ' " No. What was it 1 " ' "Oh, it's too long to tell you now; I'll \ give it to you after dinner," returned Smith. * After dinner the two friends retired to the smoking room of the steamer, and when they were comfortably seated and their pipes going the Weilingtonian commeno9d : I Yea (said, Smith), good-natured, easy- j going Jack had a remarkable experience j a few months back. You know he is a fellow that does not take much interest in girl 3. I think it would be too great an exertion for him to fall in love. However, last - summer a Miss Fosby. was spending a. few weeks with his people, and she took a desperate liking for Jack, and, knowing that his people were in a good position, thought he would makea very good catch. At picnics, race meetings.orin fact anywhere, she clung to him like a leech. Jack's good nature prevented him making it clear to her that her attentions " did not accord with his wishes, although she pestered him almost to death. He would4>Q lying reading in the summer house, and my lady would track him out, and at once open fire on him with some such remark aa, •« Oh, you horrid man, I was just thinking I should be able to come in here and enjoy a quiet read, and I find you lying here filling the place with your terrible tobacco smoke!" Jack would immediately offer to let her have sole possession of the place and try to get away, but this she would not allow, saying that as he had already made the place horrid with his awful smoke he might just as well stay, and protesting that she would feel greatly grieved if he went away because she had come in. All chance of continuing reading was hopeless, aa she would keep up a running fire of remarks. In the evenings he would be taking a stroll in the garden, but mademoiselle would suddenly come upon him just as he turned some corner, and would join him in his promenade. Jack bore all this uncomplainingly, consoling himself with the knowledge that she was not to be with them very long. The night before her departure she caught Jack sitting out in the garden just in the dusk, and at once joined him. He had began to get rather disgusted at her very conspicuous attentions, and, to add to his annoyance, his sisters had taken to chaffing him most unmercifully about these tete-a-tetes with Mies Fosby. No matter how he protested that he was not a consenting party, they only smiled knowingly at him, and if it hadn't been too muoh exertion, he says he should have got in a rage at them. ' Now as Miss". Fosby came up to where he was sitting, enjoying a cigar, be got up, and muttering some excuse about having some letters to write, turned to go to the house. She did not intend, however, to let him off so easily, andßaid : 11 1 do believe you hate me, Mr Lyle." Jack denied this gentle insinuation, and she followed up the attack with, "Then why do you always go away when I come 1 " " I don't know that I am in the habit of adopting any such practice," returned Jack ; " but, as I told you, I have some letters to write now." "Are they so very important that you must write them immediately ? " she next queried. Jack thought that, as this was the last night- she would be there, he would stop rather than appear rude, and accordingly resumed his seat, resigned for the worst. For some time she rattled on about the events of the past day, when at last she opened fire by saying, " I shall be going away to-morrow, Mr Lyle. Shall you be very pleased 1 ' "No, of course not— why should I be pleased 1 " replied Jack, at the same time feeling his conscience prick him for straying so far from the paths of truth. " I thought you would be glad to get rid of me," she said in a pensive tone. •• I am sure I must have been a terrible nuisance to you— haven't I?" and. she accompanied this with a very pleading look. " Jack muttered Bomethicg in reply, to the effect that she had been no bother to him ; but he felt that the recording angel would not join the ranks of the unemployed for a long time if the interview lasted very long. " Do you know, I shall be awfully sorry to go," she said. " The time I have been staying here has been one of the happiest parts of my life, but I feel certain I have been a terrible nuisance to you." "Ob, you haven't," said Jack; but he thought that if she considered her company was obnoxious to him she might spare him the pain of so many interviews. a " Don't you really think so 1 " she next asked. "Well, to convince me that you me*n that, will you write to me when I am gone 1 " Jack promised he would. He told me that he would have promised anything to get rid of her.

She next laughingly said, "Now mind, I shall keep you to your promise, but I am really afraid you will break it."

Jack protested that be would not, and she then playfully said, «• Now I'll tell you : lend me the small ring you have on your little linger as a bond, and I will return it with my first reply." Jack had by this time got heartily sick of her spooney nonsenßß, and gave her Che ring to get rid of her. The next d&y, tj hi* great relief, the

returned home, and Jack waß once more left in peace.

She wrote several gushing letters to him, and they invariably found their way to the fire. One day, about three months after her visit, however, he got a letter which for a time made him feel terribly uneasy. As near as I can remember it began something like this : —

Dear Jack, — Papa tells me that he thinks I should ask you to allow oar engagement to become public. I hava the ring you gave me the night we became engaged, but do not wear it. Then it went fin to say that her papa was of opinion that he should have been consulted, but she had explained everything to him.

This letter made Jack don his thinking cap, and for some days he was in a terrible dilemma. Should he write to her denouncing the whole thing as the imposture it-un-doubtedly was, or what course should he adopt 1 Finally he strangely enough decided to fall in with the whole plan. He told his people be was going to pay the Fosbys a visit, notified the papers he contributes to that he would be absent for a few weeks, and went up to Auckland. On his arrival his would-be bride greeted him very effasively, and that evening she proposed they should take a stroll along North Shore. After some little time Jack launched out, apparently with much enthusiasm, on the .subject of the approaching marriage. He says that he believes his enthusiasm made her almost fancy tbat the yarn she had made up was an actual fact. When they bad started ont she was very quiet, evidently fancying that he was about to upbraid her for the falsehood she had told, bnt when he spoke of the engagement as though it was a settled thiDg, Bhe entered into the spirit of the thing with evident de* light. After they had been talking of it for some time Jack eaid, in the most serious tone imaginable, "I suppose your father will give you a good amount when we get married ? " As her father is only a retired naval officer, and lives on his pension, the absurdity of this idea is at once apparent.

Without waiting for an answer to this startling supposition, he continued, "I have been thinking that with his dowry we might buy and furnish a nice little villa residence. My old man would have come down pretty handsomely had he been able, but, unfortunately, bis business has gone all to the dogs, and, as I have learned no profession, we shall be entirely dependent on your father's generosity. I had thought of taking up a piece of land and starting farming, but as you know as little about that as I do, I don't fancy we should make much of a living out of it. However, there will be time enough to think about that when I come back from New York."

" New York 2 " said the now startled fair impostor. " What are you going to New York for 1"

"Oh 1 I promised to pay the Daltons a visit there next year, you know. You can go and stay with my people while I am away. I have also been thinking that while I am absent you might see if you cannot start a music academy. I believe that with your knowledge of music you should be able to make a good thing out of it, or you could learn typewriting, and " But he got no further. His lady fair turned a look on him that, as he says, almost made him feel afraid.

11 Mr Lyle," she said, in her most cutting tone, " the nonsense you are favouring me with may appear very funny to you, but to me it is ridiculous, and I wish you would desist and talk sensibly."

11 1 assure you, Miss Fosby, that I earnestly mean every word I have uttered," said Jack very quietly. " You know yourself that all this nonsense about our being engaged is a trap wbioh you have set for me, and if I am to be caught you may rest assured that I do not intend to be a sufferer. At my own request my father will make me no allowance, and I certainly shall not make the slightest endeavour to make a living myself. You will have caught me, and you will most decidedly have the pleasure of keeping me. You have resorted to a scheme which no lady would have done, and to avoid a scandal I am going to allow you to suffer for it." He says the look of hate and malignity she threw up an him was quite sufficient to recom pense him for all the exertion that had been occasioned by her action. She took off his ring which she had been wearing, threw it on the ground, and left him. He carefully put on the ring, that night stayed at the Star, and next day saw him on his way back to Wellington.

He has never been troubled since by Miss F., but be afterwards heard that she told her father that the engagement had been broken off, as she found she did not care sufficiently for Mr Lyle to marry him.