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Otago Witness, Issue 2735, 15 August 1906, Page 63

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bittered her ; perhaps she thought I, too, was unforgiving (even though I wrote her a note inside bir James's, to say that my love for her would never change) ; in any case she never wrote again, and when later on I wrote to the address she had given, my letter was returned — she had gone away, leaving no clue. And now — I know — that I shall never see her again. My little Rachel— my little Rachel!" Gieat tears, the difficult tears of old age, rolled slowly down Lady Dimsdale's cheeks, and dropped upon Hope's dark head, and the girl, stirred to the depths of foer being by the strange and pitiful story she had just heara, laid her face against the sweet old face that was bent* down towards her, and kissed it over and over again. Sir James was less .easily convinced than his wife had been of Hope's identity aa his grandchild, and solemn consultations ensued in which the family lawyer took an ] important pait. The ring which Hope ! had seen in Lady Dimsdale's hand was a, copy of the old family betrothal ring taken away by Rachel .- and many questions were asked of Hope as to what had become of the original. To these questions her answer was always the same. She had. sbe said, received the ring on her mother's death, but she bad since lost it, and with this answer the lawyer was fain to be content, for the ring was after all but a small link in the chain of proof necessary to establish Hope's identity as Sir James's granddaughter." The possibility that Lady Dimsdale's surmise was a correct one, and that Hope was truly the child of their own- dead daughter, must naturally be followed by grave results. To prove Hope's identity as Sir James's grandchild meant to deprive Arthur Dimsdale of his position as heir to the estates, giving him in their place merely a barren title.

Immediately after- his daughter's abrupt departure from her home, Sir James had altered his will, disinheriting Rachel ; but he had made no mention of Rachel's possible descendants, and the old man's sense of justice showed him that to visit her mother's sins upon Hope's innocent head would be neither just nor right. The first and pressing necessity was to prove that Hope was truly his granddaughter, and the family proceeded at once to make every inquiry to the desired end. A clue was found at last, a clue overlooked by Miles Anderson, when he too had been striving to discover some particulars of Hope's parentage and family. In an old tortoise-shell box of her mother's, a box which Lady Dimsdale recognised with tears as having belonged to her daughter Rachel, a slip of paper was found bearing upon it these words in trembling uneven handwriting — "Hope was baptised in Pancras Church on April 14th, 1880."

The address of the church in which Rachel had been married was mentioned in that hurried letter written to her parents to announce her marriage, and investigation of the two registers proved beyond a doubt that Hope was the child of Edward and Rachel James, nee Dimsdale, and in consequence the granddaughter of Sir James Dimsdale and bis wife.

To the girl herself the knowledge of her new position came as something of a shock : so many experiences had beea crowded into the short year and a-half of her life, that she felt scarcely able to understand this newest and strangest development.

The tenderness lavished upon her by Lady Dimsdale, Sir James's kindliness, Arthur's hearty welcome of her as one of the family with no arriere pensee regarding iiis own vanished hopes — all these served to give the girl a sense of sheltered protected existence such as she had never known, not even during the time of her married life.

And yet bewilderment was the prevailing sensation in her mind, bewilderment and a terrible sense of wrong-doing.

The Dimsdales' formal introduction, of her to her friends as their granddaughter, Miss Hope James, stung her slumbering conscience into acute activity, and more than once she made a tremulous attempt to tell the truth to ii«r grandmother : to confess that her whole life was a lie that she was no longer Hope James at all, but Miles Anderson's wife — his wife who had run away from him in a fit of childish passionate temper.

But those half-hearted attempts at confession never came to anything. Hope's courage invariably failed her at the critical moment, and she stifled conscience afresh by assuring herself that the past was entirely buried, no one need ever know it ; she would never meet Miles again ; no necessity for ever telling the truth would ever arise. She would simply live and die as Hope James, and not a soul would be any the worse.

It was the folly of ignorance, the ignorance of a very young girl who could not measnre the effects of her own wrongdoing, and who had no conception of the ?rave results that might follow from it. Though many hard lessons had taught her the meaning of the word's self -control, she had still to learn that it is impossible to disregard the voice of conscience, and fight against its warnings, without eventually paying the penalty.

As each day that went by made her more and more accustomed to her new position, and less bewildered by it, each day was also bringing her nearer to the time when the penalty for her error must be paid, and the blow fell, as such blows will, when she was least prepared for it.

The nine days' wonder over her strange story, as much of the story as had been allowed to filter through to the ears of the county, had died down; she had become a part of the Dimsdale household, and to her grandparents she already seemed like a ray of sunshine, and her fresh youth brought new life to the old house.

When the first intimation of the extraordinary good fortune which had befallen her late governess reached Mrs Badford, that good lady was almost paralysed with, envx aaj &SQI3&I Uaflfieved. witlx « venc

wholesome terror lest Hope's disclosures, as to the treatment she had received in , the doctor's household should alienate Mrs | Radford's most precious possession, the j patronage and kindliness of the Hall. j But Hope's faults were those of a gene- ; rous, impulsive nature. Ihere was nothing , petty or mean in the girl's whole char- j acter, and never by word or sign did 7 she allow her grandparents to know what j misery she had endured during the sis j mentis she spent in the Radford house. I The gentle, gracious courtesy with which , she received Mrs Radford's gushing congiatulations endeared her for ever to the doctor's wife, who adopted a- habit of say- s

i"8 • i "Well, for my part, I always did think Miss Smith was somebody. Look at her j head : anyone could see she was as plebeian ■ as ever could be." She meant patrician, ! poor dear ; but as neither word conveyed j any meaning whatever to her listener, it j really mattered very little which she used. 2 Hope had endeared herself to the Hall J servants, and especially to Lady Dims- » dale's maid, Manners, long before the '• truth about her parentage had been divulged, and they were unfeignedly delighted when they discovered that she was, as the old butler expressed H, the master's own flesh and blood.

"And as like the picture in the little library as two peas," pnt in the housekeeper ; "and a good thing her ladyship should have a sweet little lady like MissHope to keep her company in her old age." "But that'll only be till Miss Hope marries," Manners remarked sagely ; "and I'm sure a pretty young lady as she is now, with her hair done proper the. same as Nature meant it to be done, and her clothes cut as a lady's should be, is safe to marry soon enough." "And marry not far from home, too," Smiles the butler interposed. "I see what I see, and there's many things I see that I don't say much about, but I don't mind telling you two ladies" — here he dropped his voice mysteriously — "that, sorry as I am for Mr Arthur, his ' nose being put out of joint, as you might say, still, my private opinion is he'll come to his own again in the end without anybody being a penny the worse." And here "Smiles put down Ms teacup with an air of triumph, looked across at the housekeeper, shook his head wisely, and helped himself to another round of buttered toast.

"I've thought myself that Mr Arthur is much more here than he used to be,'* was Manners's thoughtful rejoinder, "and you're right, Mr Smiles, if those two was to make a match, of it, there wouldn't be any difficulties, as you might say. They'd both" come into their own, and there couldn't be a better or a nicer marriage — him her mother's cousin and all, though nearer her age than her mother's." That which is talked over in the housekeeper's room is more often than not also being talked of amongst the family upstairs, and it chanced that on an evening in March, when Lady Dimsdale and Arthur sat alone in the former's boudoir, he said abruptly : "Aunt Elinor, you have been like a mother to me, and I -want to ask your advice."

Us stood beside the mantelpiece, looking down at bis aunt, and she saw it once that he was embarrassed, and not quite bis usual calm self.

In spite of his 30 odd! years sbe still had a" lurking feeling that be was the boy who had come to her long ago with, ail* his troubles and joys, and, smiling np into his. face, she answered gently:

"What is it, dear? Bow can I help you?" "By telling me. that I am. not too old and uninteresting to ask Hope to be my wife," was the prompt answer. "Hope? Your wife?" Lady Dimedale leant forward excitedly. Do you mean it, Arthur? Do you really mean that yoa care for my dear little girl?" j "I believe that in thie- bottom of my ' heart I began to care on the first day I saw her, framed in greenery, with the white-and-gold flowers behind her ; and— there is no doubt about my caring now." Ha laughed, a curiously nervous laugh, then caught one of his aunt's bands in his. . r

"Wilt she think lam too old? Or will she fancy I am asking her because Z <Jo not> want to lose the Hall?"

"Hope is far too simple and sweet to | impute bad motives to you, dear boy. ■ Every day she seems to me to expand into greater sweetness. She must have ha-l a terribly hard life, and it has not embittered her at all-^sbe has such a wholesome nature. Sbe wou!d never suspect you of marrying her for the property. Why, Arthur, such a marriage would make your uncle and me most unfeignedly happy. It would solve every difficulty, and we should feel we are not losing either you or Hope." \

"Then you think I might ask her? You do not think there is anybody else?"' The young man spoke with, suppressed eagerness "How could there be anyone else? Ask hpi by all means, my dearest boy, and I wish you every success. It is quite im> possible that you can have been forestalled. Her life, first in poor London lodgings and then as a governess, would not have brought her hi contact with men. Oh ! it is quite impossible that there could be — anyone else."

(To be continued.)

The noble forests of our land Beneath man's devastating hand Soon will have vanished, leaving there Thie country lying, gaunt and bare. No wooded clothing, now she's old, To save hnr from her death of cold, But lo ! new Woods arise with healing

sure, All hail, then, WftQps' Gas^T PfiFLBUTKT