HE MAYOR’S DAUGHTER.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4983, 16 April 1889, Page 4

HE MAYOR’S DAUGHTER.

STARTLING- DISCLOSURES.

LITERATURE

PART I. CHAPTER 11.

‘ Don’t cry my dear, Florry,’ said Mrs Buddlecombe, for Florence’s great blue eyes, which a few moments before bad been dancing with fun and joy, were now dim with tears. ‘ You know your father’s extraordinary antipathy to the military, Florry, and really you ought to have been more careful. There, never mind.’ ‘ Oyes, I know,’said Florry smiling thruogh her tears. ‘ But I couldn’t help it, mamma. My heart is so full this morning that I am even more impulsive than usual.’ ‘So full, Florry ! Full of what ? And what is there in this morning to fill it so full of anything ?’ asked her mother.

Florence only played nervously with her riding-whip. * Come, Florry, tell me,’ said her mother, in gentle,, affectionate tones, at the same time her arm fondly round h er daughter’s waist. ‘ Well, mamma,’ said Florence, apparently engaged in an absorbing examination of the gold mounting of her riding whip, ‘do you remember Mr Warriner whom we met atFolkstone, when you and IJ were there alone three summers ago V ‘ Yes, perfectly.’ ( Well this is his regiment just returned from the Crimea, that is expected at Puddleton to-day.’ ‘ls it really? lam sure, child, 1 had quite forgotten what regiment, he belonged to.’ ‘ I hadn’t mamma. I —l think you liked Mr Warriner didn’t you V

1 Yes, particularly do Flurry.’ * You would not be astonished then to hear, that I—I —’ 1 Not in the least astonished, Florry dear,’ said Mrs Buddlecombe, after a long-, earnest gaze at her daughter. ‘I should have been astonished a few minutes ago j but I now know your secret|svithout your having told it to me.’ ‘ Well, but seriously, Florry, darling you are in love, eh.’ ‘ Oh irretrievably !’ replied Florence, opening her eyes wide, and looking very solemn and determined. ‘I am sorry for it. I had no idea it had been anything more than just a mild little passing boy and girl flirtation, lam very sorry for it, Florry.’ ‘ Why, mamma, why ?’ asked Florry peering eagerly into her mother’s eyes, while a startled look of pain and fear flitted across the young face. ‘ Because, my child, I fear no good can come of it. Your father will never countenance anything of 'the sort. I tremble to think of the effect the disclosure would have upon him. It would be like putting a lighted match into a barrel of gunpowder. Such is his blind unreasoning antipathy to the army that I believe he would sooner see you married to a field-labourer than a field marshal.’

‘ It makes me tremble too when 1 think ot it ; but I have an idea, mamma, that it will all come right iu the end,’ said Florence, with that truly youthful belief in the efficacy of the future. ‘ What a happy day this is compared with that dark day when I read in the newspapers, ‘ Severely wounded, Lieutenant Algernon, Fitzmaurice Warriner, Queen’s Fusiliers ”! How I passed the time and kept up appearances before you all until the mail brought better news, Ido not know.’

* Hush, Florry, here’s you lather !’

4 l ; ve hoisted my flag to celebrate the entry of the military into Puddleton,’ said Mr Buddlecombe, as he came fussing into the room ; * and I have derived a certain amount of gloomy satisfaction from hoisting it half-mast high. If I had only had a black flag wi:h a Death’s head and cross-bones I would have hoisted that. But I hadn’t and so I used the Union Jack upside down instead. And if I had only possessed sufficient experience in explosives, I’d further console myself by firing off minute guns ; and if my musical education had not been neglected, I’d play a solo on the muffled drum. That could be hardly be construed into a manifestation of rejoicing by even the most bigoted admirer of the military. Moreover if ’ Here a heavy footstep in the veranda outside, tramping in time to a hearty gruff-toned rendering of the ‘ British Grenadiers,’ cut short Mr Buddlecombe in the lull flow of his rhetoric.

* Bother Bolitho !’ be ejaculated, ‘ Everybody that cornea to the house this monrng must think it necessary to herald his or her approach with a song. First of all, Florence comes in caterwauling, and then this old porpoise Bolitho comes pounding along my veranda, and making a noise like a rhinoceros in a fit.’

m-At this point, after humming the martial air up to the last moment before coming into view, Mr Bolitho entered the room with a beaming smile oh his fine red old face, his low crowned, broad-rimmed beaver in one hand, and an enormous nosegay in the other. Mr Bolitho, or ‘ old Joe Bolioho,’ as he was generally called, was a Puddletonian born and bred. He was a fine hearty old fellow of about eighteen stone in weight, and sixty years of age. For anyone in fair condition of mind and body, who did not mind a noise and occasional prod in the ribs there could not have been a more jollier associate than old Joe Bolitho. By the young of both sexes he was idolised.

‘Oh how are you, my dear Mrs Buddlecombe ?’ said Mr Bolitho, as he threw his hat and his nosegay on to a table and then siezed the lady by both her hands. ‘ Well, Florry, little girl, seen you before this morning. How are you, Buddie V this last inquiry being accompanied by a poke in the worshipful ribs. ‘ Quite well, thank you, ‘ mine own familiar friend/ replied Mr Buddlecombe, resenting the liberty by draw-

ing himself up into a dignified attitude, which was completely lost on Joe Bolitho.

‘ That’s right. “ With the tow-row row-de-dow-dow of the British.”—Excuse me, Mrs Buddlecombe, excuse me my dear lady, I am in such a state of martial enthusiasm that I cannot help being a little demonstrative.' ‘ I admire it in you, Mr Bolitho. I only wish you could instil a little of your fine patriotic feeling into a certain other individual,’ said Mrs Buddlecombe, while Mr Buddlecombe sought refuge in his newspaper. ‘ And what’s that enormous bouquet for, Mr Bolitho ?’ asked Florence. ‘ That Florry ? That’s for you to throw at the head of the column as it marches past the lodge-gates,’ said Mr Bolitho, seizing the bouquet, and waving it enthusiastically over his head. ‘ Beauty crowing Valour.’ ‘ Nothing of the sort,’ said Mr Buddlecombe, lowering his newspaper and glaring fiercely over it. ‘ Florence if you dare to crown Valour I’ll send you to bed, and stop your pocketmoney.’ ‘ Then I shall, Mr Bolitho !’ said Mrs Buddlecombe, with an extremely majestic bearing, accompanied by an insubordinate glance at her spouse, ‘ You! Do you consider, Mrs Buddlecombe, that you are fitted at your time of life to enact the part of Beauty ?’ Mr Buddlecombe rose from bis chair, and awaited the answer with his hands under his coat-tails.’

‘ Certainly,’ replied Mrs Buddlecombe, stung to the quick by this unmanly, this brutal allusion to her age. ‘ Certainly ; tor you, Mr Buddlecombe, are playing the companion role to such perfection ; Beauty and the — !’ ‘ Ha, ha, ha, !’ roared old Bolitho. ‘ Bolitho should be muffled and sunk down a well when he is in Ja facetious mood, and one might delude one’s self into the belief that he was thunder,’ snarled Mr Buddlecombe, as he went off to his armchair and his newspaper in high dungeon.

Mr Bolitho, in his own boundless good-nature, was proof against his old boy-friend’s ill-temper ; so all he said, when Mr Buddlecombe plumped himself into an armchair, was, ‘ Ah, Buddie, you are not yourself today.’ s Never mind him, Mr Bolitho ,* he’s hardly a responsible being this morning,’ said Mrs Buddlecombe. ‘ Now tell us about the arrival of the regiment, we’re longing to hear,’ she added, in lower tones.

‘ Yes, do, Mr Bolitho. Do you know I think I must have caught some of your enthusiasm,’ whispered Florence archly.

(To be Continued,')