MISS JACOBSEN’S CHANGE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 6751, 4 February 1892, Page 4

MISS JACOBSEN’S CHANGE.

LITERATURE

| CONTINUED. Sara took her cloak and her shoes—which last were lone np in a little packet, for they were going on foot to their dinner party —and went into the dining-room, where Mr Jacobsen was walking impatiently to and fro. He had been fortifying himself with a • nip/ as Sara saw to her alarm ; hot perhaps be had been indemnifying himself lor abstemiousness during the day, for she fancied that his face was not so red as usual, and ho seemed steadier in his gai: generally, Mr Jacobsen was big and loosely made, with a tendency To corpulence. He bad a large flabby face, dark and oily, but not aggressively Jewish in outline, with a protruding under Up, and an upper one which had those astute curves that seem to lend themselves to a rowdy sort of eloquence. His forehead was large, and a stranger would certainly have given him credit for abilitv. He looked ill at ease in his suit o‘f dress-clothes, as though the occasions for wearing theca were not frequent; but he had placed a jaunty breast-knot in his button-holc.

He eyed bis daughter with approval, in which mingled some doubts of a> different nature.

‘Look here,’he said. ‘ You’ve got yourself up pretty smart, Miss Sara. I like to see you take the shine out of Lally Strover, if you can manage it ; but’don’t you go overspreading your allowance. I'm going to make you a present of, say, twenty pounds extra for fal-lals and fixings ; for now that you have got ff chance, you’d better make the most of it. But mind, I can’t fork out more than that. I’ve other uses for my money.’

Mr Jacobsen paused, and drained the last drop in his tumbler of brandy-anrt-water as if for inspiration. Then he said, in peculiarly unctuous tones which had a note of insincerity, and grated on Sara’s nerves : ‘ I’m a man of principle, my girl, though I’ve been unfortunate in business ; and there are creditors not paid quite up to the mark yet. Do you understand ? Men who have a claim upon me in honour —mind you, in honour only.’ Sara answered :

‘ Yes, father. Thank you.’ Her cheeks reddened a little. She was busy putting on her cloak and hood, and pinning op her dress. They went out into the soft night air, and Sara’s heart beat with a pleasant sense of excitement. There was a new moon, a thin crescent, in the sky. She looked up to it and wished, not for anything definite, but that her presentiment of some great event impending might be a true one. She did not much care what happened, so long as it was something dramatic. The most dramatic thing would be that some one should fall in love with h"r, and a vague fancv entered her mind tha 1 Dr Lionel Fraill, who must, from Daily's description, be undoubtedly interesting, mights be that somebody but she dismissed the thought quickly, for, in sp toother moderate estimate of the matrimonial chances of Australian girls, her own ambition soared abo»e the surgeon of an emigrant ship. They had to walk down a steep hill, and then be ferried across the river. The boat waa waiting at the steps, and there were no other passengers. The boatsman’s ‘ o—ver !’ sounded pretty along the water, which lay still and dark under tha shadow of the cliffs, but in which, lower down towards the town, hundreds of lights twinkled. The lights were those of boats, barges, and steamers, and the reflections of lamps along the shore of the north side. Sara hked the ten minutes’ pull across. She liked the dreamy motion of the boat, and the picturesqueness of the scene.

There was a steamer going out, a steamer bound to Sydney, which town, in Sara’s imagination, represented a sort of Australian London. The bell tinkling at intervals added to the girl’s exhilaration. How often, when impatient a* the dulnesa of her life, she had wished to be in one of those out-ward-bound steamers! But she did not wish it now. liven her father seemed to recognize the fact that her opportunity had come, and that he was bound to help her to seize it. Something be said while they were on their way confirmed this impression. ‘ Sara, it’s a pity you weren’t born ten years sooner ; and then you might have got your chance before my luck turned. I could have given you a handsome sum down on your weddingdav, and not many a man would have turned up his nose then at JRatcliffo Jacobsen’s daughter. Things are different now. Leichardt’s Land is given over to a set of snobs and up starts. Nothing counts with them but: raom-v, unless they’ve got a touch of English swagger, and cben they may be as poor us starved kangaroorats, but their airs are the very denes-1 Don ’t you go knuckling under to them.’ 1 No, father,’ replied Sara submissively. “ What you’ve got to think of is getting married,’ continued Mr Jacobsen ; ‘and marrying well., They are bound to take some notice of us, and to ask you out, now tha t I’m in the Ministry, You must be given a place at the Governor’s supper-table, and you've a right to sit in the front row at wha'everis going on. A pretty girl like you is sure to have fellows running after her Just yon make the most of your time. Between ourselves, I don’t think Sfcrover will drive bis team for long. There’ll be a split on the Land measure when it comes on again, and then I may whistle for my thousand a year. Take my advice, and try and get married before we’re turned out.’ Sara walked on in silence. She

had put the case clearly to herself, and had taken her resolve ; but her bosom swelled with a feeling of forlorn ness and shame now that it was stated in such bald terms by her father. ‘A girl is out of place along with a man/ Mr Jacobsen went on with bluff candour. ‘ She is in his way, and he is in hers.’

Sara could not help thinking that her father did not suffer her to be a drag on his occupations and amusements ; often for days together she never saw him. But she said nothing. • I’ve no fault to find with you/ Mr Jacobsen said magnanimously. 4 It’s just in the nature of things ; what is a man to do with a girl hanging on to him ? And then it’s an expense one doesn't count upon lasting. If I hadn’t got to keep house for you, I’d live at the Club, and my creditors would he paid off in no time. Besides, it’s all in your own interest thai. I am speaking. No girl is happy till she has a husband and a home of her own,’

4 I suppose it depends on the sort of husband she gets, and on the sort of home she is leaving/ said Sara, with a faint bitterness in her tone. 4 All right, papa/ eheadded more cheerfully. 4 You ara only putting into words what I have been thinking for sometime. The wisest thing I can do is to marry as soon as I can. I won’t promise to accept the first person who asks me—that is, it any one does ; no one Las shown any desire to make me happy as yet—but I’ll do my best io secure an eligible husband, and then you will be relieved from anx s ety about me and can live at the Club.’