CHAPTER I.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9214, 18 April 1908, Page 2

CHAPTER I.

In seven short hours the clocks would beat out the death knell of the old year and the bells chime a merry welcome to his newly-born successor, for the day was the last one of December, and the hour five in the evening. But it was not of the waning year that Mary Sanderson thought and spoke as she paused on the step of the cow-shed, one hand lightly holding a foaming can of milk, in the other the lantern by the light of which she had milked the cows.

" It's no use, Joe, we've been over this ground bo often before,'- she was saying to her companion., a stalwart young fellow of aboul; her own age who was leaning against the lintel of the door, the bridle of a handsome young horse on his arm. "Ay, we're neither of us breakin' new ground," ho answered, somewhat roughly, the frown on his brow growing deeper. He was in the unpleasant position of a man who recognises that he is putting forth his strongest arguments in vain.

. " Ay, we've talked it over many a time," she said, putting the can and lantern on the ground, " and we always come back to the same place where we started,."

" Yes, but we must settle it to-night. Will you make up your mind to. get married before hay time?" It\was a subject for much wonder in Endercrosa that Joe Breckon, the largest farmer and most well-to-do man in the place, should look no higher for his sweetheart than Mary Sanderson, she being the only child of an invalid widow who rented a few acres of grass land and "kept three cows.

"I shall never leave mother, either to get married or anything else," she <*nid firmly, her fnouth closino: in that line of unalterable resolution which BreeVon had learned to know well.

" I've always snid yonr mother would be as welcome at Red Barns as I oonjrl make her-— snrely there's room enough there for bothof you-" His voice was low ami win nine: now, for. keen bnsi"nefifi man thonarh he was, Joe BrAckon held his plain-faced and toil worn sweetheart far abovo his worldly gocd and gear.

" I've thought ahout all that, Joe, but it would break mother's heart to leave here, even if we persuaded her to do it," said Mary, not unmoved by hie softened manner. " It's seven years since I told you I wouldn't marry till — till ; " her voice faltered, *' and you promised to wait." By the faint gleam of daylight still lingering in the western sky and the lantern's yellow flicker she could see his tanned face grow a deeper colour., " Aye, it's jfeeven years since mother and me came to the farm, and we camehome from church together the first night I sang in th© choir. It's five years since mother died, and all that time there's been nobody in the house that I could speak to but a housekeeper and a servant. Your mind's made up, MaryP'V

" Yes, I shall never leave mother, nor yet ask her to leave the Gill." There was silence while one could have counted ten, then Breckon turn* ed to her, an angry light in his eyes. " Well, if your mind' 6 made up, there's an end of it, for mine's been made up a bit," he said hotly. "So you may consider all is over between us. I shan't go out with the carolsingers to-night." 11 There is no need for that, as I hare lately thought of coming out of the choir, and I shall do it now," answered she, but he did not speak again. He flung himself across his restive young horse with the ease of a practised horseman,' galloping out of the farmyard without a backward 1550k at the woman in whom the brightest dreams of his youth and the fairest hopes of his manhood had ever centred. A few minutes Mary Sanderson stood where he had left her, an unwonted > quiver abating her ligs, then, she quiet-

ly picked up her can of milk and went back to the house, hopelessly conscious that the new year would work no spell to make golden the greyness which tad fallen over her life like a pall.