A PINCH OF ATTIC SALT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7637, 21 February 1903, Page 3

A PINCH OF ATTIC SALT.

(By JENNINGS CARMICHAEL.) " Kitty, you deceitful creature ! You have given me the nicest sausage in the crowd!" cried' Phillis, with an exploring stretch of her neck towards the dish on which three or four sausages lay — "an oasis ju a vast desert of crockery," as Bob defined it. " Bob " was the brother of the two girls, and 1 tried bis hardest to look a responsible an.l capable head of the forlorn little family. But nineteen is not a< mature age to undertake such a position, particularly when an unkind Fate has made a fellow indecently good-looking and hobbledehoy. Bob meant ty go "stacks of things" for his sisters, in a splendid; sorb of way, despite his juvenile pimples and boyish" trick of furious blushing. The girls regarded him with maternal tolerance, quite realising that for the present Bob was the protected and: not the protector. Could 1 one expect otherwise from- n, lad, rudely torn from his first year at " Qrunond " to face the catastrophe of utter ruin and the shadow of shame at home? Their father had solved his part of the situation by .showing "a clean pair of heels " to his creditors, undisturbed by any sentimental qualms as to what would become of his motherless, extravagantlyreared family. The beautiful (home, with its terraced gardens sloping to the blue waters of the harbour, had been sold 1 under the hammer. The children found themselves with barely etough money to secure the necessaries of life, .and were forced to rent three attic rooms, in an unfashionable quarter of Sydney, while they mastered the difficult art of earning bread' and butter. Bob worked hard, looking up advertisements andl applying for Situations, running the whole bitter gamut of " unemployed " experiences, with no practical result. Kitty contrived to make a few shillings painting cheap pictures and screens, and: Phillis, the elder sister, was learning shorthand and typewriting with a view to taking a situation in an office. Their father's sudden departure, and the unpleasant circumstances surrounding it, virtually ostracised his children among the fashionable circle of '"friends" who had once- been so pleased to cultivate their acquaintance. "The festive sausage grows a bit monotonous," observed' Bob, as he helped himself to ihis share of the meal. " Can't we aspire to a joint this week, Phil?" "And cook it over our tiny oil-stove?" laughed 1 his sister. . "Fancy a three-bob oil-stove as a cook-ing-machine!" chuckled the boy. "How much did our gas bills run to at home?'' ■ "I'm afraid we were outrageously extravagant," sighed Kitty, with a sigh for the fleshpots of Egypt. " How much we might have saved if we had only known!" " And the pater would have pocketed the lot," concluded her brother with the scowl that always appeared at the mention of his K father's name. "I saw Dick Jeffreys's father an George Street this morning," remarked Kitty, changing the subject with tact. She glanced towards her sister as she spoke, and caught the hint of a blush in her cheeks. "Of course he .did not reoognise me under my gossamer." "Ah, Phil! You made a mistake when you let Dick^ Jeffreys slip through your fingers," lamented Bob, starting on a supplementary meal of bread and jam. > " I'm sure you could have hooked him as easy as falling off a log." " I did not want to hook him, thanks," answered Phil in a rather strained voice, edged with . a savour of bitterness. " I prefer to do without the Honourable Mamma's patronage." "0 hangi the Honourable Mamma!" advised Bob, cheerfully. "I bet Dick Jeffreys isn't the fellow to allow any one to patronise his wife." Phillis's face had grown old and tiredlooking during the conversation ; her brother and sister little knew the delicate ground upon which they were treading with the elephantine feet of tactless youth. " Phil was quite right to give Dick up," said Kitj^y, with a shake of tier etupid little head. "We don't want lovers whose people despise us because we have a father —of a sort!" The girls often found Bob's vernacular expressive. . "I would be obliged if you would find something to discuss besides my affairs!" cried" Phil, sharply, the pain in her heart betraying itself in the whitening face and twitching lips. "I don't wish to be reminded of Dick Jeffreys ; he-^he has quite passed out of my life!" The tears which had long lain heavily on her heart, rose to Phil's eyes and burst forth in a tempest of angry grief, j Mad with herself for her want of self-con-trol, Phillis rose from the table and walked hurriedly away to her room, leaving her I brother and sister staring at each other with aghast and remorseful eyes. " I never guessed poor old Phil was really hipped about Jeffreys !" Bob said softly. The tears welled into Kitty's eyes. "We mustn't speak of him again, Bob," she whispered, quite overcome at the seriousness of the love which Phil had forgone so quietly. "I think Dick Jeffreys might have hunted her up and made her marry him," she added in the same mysterious, Belf-reproacbful whisper. "He can't really havs cared for her." "A fellow doesn't like to take a wife with a shady father," observed Bob sapiently, squaring his young shoulders as his eyes flashed fire. " Wouldn't I like to punch his head for his cheek!" "He may possibly have tried to find Phil," suggested Kitty, remembering the trusty, handsome face 6$ her sister's lover. •'You 1 know we have even told the landlady not to , mention our name to any inquirers. How could he find us except by chance?" " Stop slandering your neighbours, my children !" cried a gay, girlish voice at the door. "There are the high tea things, to ■wash up, and one of you must sally forth for breakfast eggs." It was Phillis, with her tear-washed eyes unnaturally bright, and red splashes of colour on her cheeks. With a sweep of her arm she began collecting the odd plates and dishes which did duty for a dinner service, singing meanwhile in a defiant, cheery treble that 'tried to give a brave lie to her recent tears. Kitty joined' in the clearing of the table with a sigh of relief. A lachrymose Phil would be most uncomfortable, particularly when there was bread to be earned, and an obtrusive wolf to be kept from the door. "If he would only come along and put! everything right like the decent fellows do in novels!" she thought wistfully. "I hope he'll marry some one who'll lead him a fine dance for the .rest of bis life !" . Meanwhile the object of this girlish anathema was walking down Pitt Street looking : quite as miserable as even Kitty could have desired . In truth Dick Jeffreys ha d changed in a very marked degree since- the disappearance of tie girl who was practically his betrothed wife, although, up till the time of Phil's family- trouble, no formal engagement had been announced. Dick had annoyed, the Hon Mrs Jeffreys very much by publishing his betrothal immediately after the scandal concerning Phil's father was whispered abroa/d.^ "The girt has the decency to efface herself," his mother had remarked, quite oblivious of the fact that she had once desired the match between her only son and one of John Etherington's reputedly rich daughters; •'." " ■ . " Why you want to be so idiotic as to identify yourself with such undesirable connections, I cannot understand." "j want Phil," was\ Dick's dogged answer. "She's mine, and I'll have her, if I have the luck to find her." - Whjch tl?« fates forbid!" the- mother had muttered piously, a little; afraid of the Btubborn son who, always contrived to have hWway.v: '■. ■ ■■■'■ / . •..■ ..'■■■ p.* <*r-^- " \ sxoatil <prl in a large city us

not an easy tatk, particularly when she is bent on eluding search. Dick grew tired of following women who looked like Phillis, and pursuing cities which made him appear ridiculous. The rumour soon circulated among his friends that young Jeffreys was ransacking the city for his sweetheart. '• He will find her and marry her," was the universal opinion. "Dick never looks back." But the months had gene on, and John Etherington's children still managed to evade Jeffreys's patient search. { One evening, just when he was turning over in his mind the advisability of extending his hunt beyond Sydney, Dick walked straight into the arms of Phil's young brother. Bobby was very much surprised, and rather disconcerted to find his arm seized in a vice, while Jeffreys demanded in a fierce 1 sort of excitement : "What have you done with PhilnsT 1 insist on knowing where Phillis is!" " Great Scott, Jeffreys ! Steer clear of my pocket ; it's jammed full of eggs, and Ive got my best coat on!" Bobby exclaimed, edging away from Phil's lover in apprehension. " Why, she was doing ai howl about you this evening," added the boj with a . frankness that would have earned a box on the ears from his sister. "I never^knew you and Phil wero really two lovers.' Jeffreys looked at the round, pimpled face and marvelled why he had not previously discovered its attractiveness. "Are you going home to her now: he asked in a kind of awed voice,, at thought of such happiness. "You know, Bob, I shan't let you go until I've seen her!" ■ . , " We're in a jolly poor sort of a show, you see, Dick," began Bobby, hesitatingly. " Second-hand chairs for seats, and so on. " the chairs!" was Dick's comment. "I want to see Phil." " I'll get into a devil of a row for taking you without due notice." Bob watched the trams steam by with a rueful look of uncertainty. "You know, Jeffreys, Phil thinks you oughtn't io marry a girl whose father is such a bounder as ours." ,The boy's words stuck in. his throat for a moment, " That's why she did the disappearing trick when the ehow burst up at home." " I want Phil," Dick persisted in the mulish voice that was the despair of his ambitious mother. " Your father may go to the devil as far as I am concerned, but Phil is mine." " Well, if you don't mind climbing a few dozen flights" of stairs, and piitting up with ; bare boards and second-hand sticks, you can come," Bob agreed, af Ler a pause. Jeffreys was away in Queensland when the Etherington's trouble came, so he knew i nothing of their private straits, except from j rumour, which he always discounted as a "lying jade." On the wa.y to their humble lodgings, Bob gave his companion a j sketchy but graphic account of the troubles , i in which their father's dishonesty had in- \ volved them, dwelling with painful emphasis on his own helplessness, and the bitter humiliation of enforced idleness. j " We'll alter all that," Dick said in a quiet voice. " I wager I'll soon see you put in the way of earning bread and cheese." Dick cursed the unending stone stairs as he mounted after Bob. His brave little girl had climbed them daily for a good many months, and he imagined how the young limbs must have ached under the effort. As a matter of fact, Phil had never even noticed the stairs ; trifles are apt to be lost in the press of large sorrows. But Dick did not realise this. At the top of the staircase, he saw Phil's figure through the open door, and paused to pull himself together, so overcome was he at the thought of her nearness and dearness. Phil was not a particularly pretty girl — only one of the brown-haired, stead-fast-eyed women one can frequently find in unobtrusive by-ways of the^ world. But Phil, Dick Jeffreys loved, as a strong man loves the queen of his home, and the mother of his children. She was part of his manhood, and his whole being cried out for her in a yearning that set him trembling with, a kind of fearful joy. "It has taken two able-bodied Australians to bring 1 home six eggs," remarked Bob, as he went into the room and extracted the tangible contents of ihis pocket. " I brought Dick along to pick one out of t>he wreck in case of accidents." "Whoever are you speaking of, Bob?'! cried Kitty, advancing towards the door with looks of pale expectancy. Phil simply learned against the wall and battled with the riot of emotions which her brother's words hadi roused. She saw the familiar figure in the shadowy landing, and knew instantly that her heroic barricade of pride and renunciation would go down with one gust of Dick's masterful passion. Jeffreys hardly paused to greet Kitty, but strode on into the room and stood looking down at Phil's averted face with an expression that filled Kitty's eyes with happy tears. "I think we'll go for a walk, Bobby," alhe whispered 1 , and in another moment they had closed! the door on the lovers. " You. might have saved such a lot of precious time, little Phil," was Dick's remark as he gathered' 'her to him, in spite of her half-hearted struggles. "I am yours and you are mine, sweet wife. What is the use of wasting, our lives." " Everything has changed since you asked me to marry you, Dick." The girl faltered, shrinking under the kisses which were pressed) on her bowed head. "I do not want to darken your, life with our disgrace." " I would) want you, dear, if I had! to wed you under the shadow of the gallows," he answered, solemnly. "Cannot you understand, Phil, that you are the one woman Jn the world 1 for me, that I cannot live without you?" So there was nothing left for Phil to do but yield herself to the supreme joy of the moment. Dick was so positive and so strong, and oh ! tow dearly she loved' him ! Surely «uclrlove as theirs must defy tike world and! conquer fafcd) " Ah ! We have had our pinch of attic salt!" said Bob, a few weeks later, glancing up at the peaked roof they were leaving, with a moralising air. Bobby's metaphors were always inclined to be misty,- but fortunately his audiences were rarely critical. " I say, Kit, ,it was jolly decent of old Jeffreys getting me this Government billet," he added 1 , helping his (sister fo cord a box. " Now you and I can get up a swagger little show on our own when Phil is Mrs Dick." But, unfortunately for Bobby's plans, Kitty hadi a wedding within a very few months of her sister's, and the deserted brother is now disconsolately cultivating ihis moustache andl reflecting on the possibilities of matrimony for himself. :