THE MAY0R’S DAUGHTER.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4991, 26 April 1889, Page 4

THE MAYOR’S DAUGHTER.

LITERATURE

Warriner carried this decision into effect and stepped through the French window, which partly open, and disappeared in the darkness outside. He had scarcely made good bis retreat, when Mrs Buddlecombe, Florence and old Bolitho, followed by Spigot and a few other persons, rushed into the room in respense to the loud peals of the bell which had sounded the alarm throughout the house. *O, darling papa, what is the matter,' cried Florence, rushing terrorstricken to her father, and taking one of his hands in both hers. 1 Joshua, my own Joshua, speak to me,’ screamed Mrs Buddlecombe, as she took his other hand, knelt by his side, and looked imploringly up into his face. But Mr Buddlecombe spoke not; he only rolled his eyes, and breathed stertorously. * Oh, Joshua, Joshua,’ sobbed Mrs Buddlecombe, I’ve often told you how it would he some day. How I have begged and prayed of you to curb that excitable temperant of yours, especially after a meal. But you would never take my advice.’ How, * Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast ; Of all the horrid hideous notes of woe Uttered by friends, those prophets of the past, la that portentous phrase, “ I told you so.” It is also just about the most exasperating remark that can be made to anyone troubled in mind or body. It may, therefore, appear that Mrs Buddlecombe rubbed the sore when she should have brought the plaster, as Gonzalo would have expressed it. However, rubbing the sore was just the very best thing the lady could have done. There is not the slightest doubt that, on the homoeopathic ; principle of like curing like, it saved Mr Buddlecombe from apoplexy. A rage all but produced the disease ; another rage averted it. He at once found his tongne, though at first it was with difficulty he used it. . ‘ ‘ 0, woman, in our hours of ease,’ ’ he observed feebly, but with an ominous glare in his eye, ‘ ‘ Uncertain, coy, and hard to please; when pain and anguish ring the brow,’ your invariable remark is, ‘ I told you so, but you would not take my advice.’ ’ With this last outrage on Sir Walter Scott, Mr Buddlecombe was himself again. He jumped up from his chair, and with fearful volubility poured forth the pent up torrents of his wrath : ‘ 0, Georgina, it’s positively maddening. It doesn’t matter whether you have got a cold, in the head, or dropped ten thousand pounds in railway shares, or slipped on a bit ol orange peel, or murdered your mother-in-law, or tore away a button, or tumbled off the top of the Monument, it is always the same with a women, “ I told you so, but you wouldn’t take my advice.” Did you tell me, Georgina, that I was going to i be made a fool of by that young puppy ? Did you apprise me of the fact that I was about to be turned inside out, upside down, backwards and forwards, round and round, by that one-armed, double-faced young jackanapes ?’ ‘Why, what has he done?’asked everybody. ‘DoneT Done me! Why he’s obtained a dinner from me under false pretences, and then made a fool ol me, coupled with a gross insult toward a member ot my family.’

‘ I don’t believe it; there’s been some misunderstanding’, ’ said Florry to herself. ‘O, dear, whore is he ?’

‘ Here close that window, Spigot, and draw the curtains,’ said Mr Buddlecombe. * Come, along, follow me, }ou servants : and if I find him in the grounds, I’il have him tarred and featL..red and Mr Buddlecombe bustled out of the room, followed by Spigot and the rest of the servants. ‘ 0, what can Algy have said or done and what has become of him?’ thought Florence as she wrung her hands together.

‘ It will never do for Joshua to be left to his own devices in this excited state,’ said Mrs Buddlecombe. ‘ He does not know what he’s saying. Tarred, and feathered indeed ! I’il follow him;’and Mrs Buddlecombe hurriedly left the room.

Florence was about to follow her mother, when old Bolitho placed his hand on her shoulder and detained her.

‘ Stay, Florry, your lather is all right now. He has regained his normal condition of fluster, and you had better leave him to your mother. It’s a queer piece of business, isn’t it ? But I don’t believe for one moment young Warriner has said or done anything wrong.’ ‘Neither do I.’

‘ I wish he had not beaten such a rapid retreat, though. However I won’t believe any harm of him. I never came across a young feiiow I liked and admired so much in every way.’ ‘ What a darling old pet Mr Bolifho is/ thought Florry, ’ * I tell you what it is/ said Mr Bolitho, addressing an imaginary audience rather than Florry, ‘ if I had a daughter, Fd—l’d —hang it. I’d ram her down his throat as a reward for valour.’ Notwithstanding her distress ol mind, Florence found it impossible to repress a laugh ; but old Bolitho looked quite serious, a wonderful phenomenon that attracted her attention. ‘ What’s the matter, Mr Bolifho ?’ ‘ Well, since you’ve noticed a change in my manner, I’ll tell you what’s the matten I must say, Florence, that during all these years I have known you, ever since you were a baby with a mistaken notion that your duty toward your godfather was to gouge his eyes out, I do not recollect one single act of yours which was anything but pleasing in those organs, not even your

infantile efforts to deprive me of them,’ ‘ Then I have incurred your displeasure this very evening ? 0, what is it, Mr Bolitho V asked Florence, eagerly. ‘ Can I,’ she asked herself, turning her face away to hide the blushes with which the very thought suffused her fresh cheeks. ‘ 0 can I unconsciously during the dinner have betrayed my love for Algy ?’ ‘ Yes, Florry, I am sorry to say that this very evening your conduct occasioned me some pain and, I may add, annoyonce.’ ‘ Occasioned you pain and annoyance, Mr Bolitho. You, who have always been a second father to me. 0, you know, I would not do so, willingly,’

‘ I do not like to see Florry, in one so young such coldness, such marblelike indifference in a case where anyone would suppose youthful interest, and, at all events a passing sympathy, would be most readily awakened. That gallant young fellow, Florry, with the tacit but eloquent reminder of his gallantry before you in the shape of a shattered arm—why, thesight of him stirs up even my old blood ; but you, a young girl at an impressionable age, too, were like an icicle—treated him, forsooth, with a frigid indifference that amounted to positive contempt. I could have shaken you, Florry,’ ‘ 0, how awfully knowing Mr Bolitho is,’ murmured Florence, as she turned aside to hide a smile. ‘ Ah, you may well turn away Florry, conscience-stricken in the knowledge that my rebuke is merited. And the worst of it is, I could see that this coldness, was no overacted assumption ot maidenly coyness, but genuine, if such a terra can be so unworthily applied.’ (To be Continued, )