"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10631, 29 November 1912, Page 4

"STAR" TALES.

WAS IT LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT ? (By MERCEDES.) [All Rights Reseeved.] Norwood, April 3, 19—. Dear Aunt Mary,—You'll be anxious for news ot the Nonvoodites. Well, I've been down a week now, ami tho time lias been principally spent in absolute opru-moutlied wooder at Jenny. You'll remember that at eighteen—three years ago—she announced hot - intention of being the okl maid of tho family, and staying at home to darn the stockings and feed the chickens — metaphorically speaking. Her stylo of dressing her hair has always been the despair of tho Family; she has a rooted love for the year before last's fashions in hats, and Mrs Noah's own style of neckwear. And now Jenny has been found surreptitiously studying fashion iournah, or, if come upon suddenly in her bedroom, arranging her hair in different ways, and actually trying the •ft'act of a violet velvet ribbon round a toppley erection of little brown curls. And it is rumoured —mind, I don't irouch for tho truth of this—that sho ,bas despatched a sealed and registered letter to Martha Yickers, that frivolous Slid dressy little school friend of hers In Loudon, and that the letter has reference to a certain Madame Marca's, in Bond Street, where Creations, not hats, aunty dear, but Creations, come into being. But a further fact I will vouch for, because I've seen it with my own eyes: she has taken to Dutch necks and Peter Pan collars, instead ot those absolutely appalling " sensible" high necks, with lace tuckers, she was 60 faithful to.

The family is quite unable to offer any reasonable explanation of the remarkable change m Jenny. Some of them are even idiotic enough to put it down to Val's return on furlough from his regiment in India, though I can't think why on earth one's brother coming back should make any difference when the united jeers and entreaties of five brothers and one sister on the spot, and the gratuitous advice of many cousins, not forgetting the gentle remonstrances of one Aunt Mary, have failed up till now to produce anything more modern in Jenny's toilette than the fashions of a decade fig©. Aunt Randa often says: "It's a, mercy, anyway, that the child doesti t fancy crinolines v.s being suitable t/ fcor rcie in life." The whole household is in great excitement over Val's home-coming. Aunt Randa and Jenny went up to London to meet his steamer, and he travelled back with them as far as Catterby, where Joan Fleming's people live decided they are to be married before his leave is up—and he is coming on here next Saturday. The only thing that is damping "the family's spirits is that he is bringing a Captain Land with him, that he met on the noat. It seems that Captain Land and Uncle John were old friends, and when- Aurit Randa knew this, she insisted on the Captain's coming down to Norwood with Val, as he has been out of England ten years, and "has no people to welcome him. All the family except Jenny are loud In lamentation about having a stranger to spoil the rejoicings. especially one—as Val describes him in one of his letters—- " Fifty, and as peppery in his temper as his own Indian curries." But Jenny is such a hospitable little soul; and she Bays she qiiite took a fancy to_ her father's old friend when she met him in London.

§ Good-bye, Aunty dear. I must really go and see what new thin" Jenny has on to surprise the family.—Love from NIECEY KITTY.

The noise and stir of a troop of impatient horsemen filled the courtyard on a dreary night, the splash of rain and the swish of wind in the trees forming a dismal accompaniment to their talk,

"What wait we for, Brandon?" inquired one young officer of another. " Surely the Captain knows we have little time enough to join the main force "nefore dawn, and 'tis I for one have no wish to leave my head as an offering to those accursed Roundheads, M we are like, all of us, to do if we rklo with this handful in open day with Cromwell's bands encamped so near." " Ha, my gay cavalier," answered the other, "If it were yourself, now, within, who took leave of the Lady Christabel, yon would think it ill became your company to speak of a head or so forfeit to the Roundheads. Know you not that the Captain tarries but to say farewell to his lady, bis bride of only these fix months past? And well he knows Uis a small chance he has of again taking that little form in liis arms, for 'tis a fight now to the death, say T. And the Captain's a marked man—his grizzled grey head is. too well known as a hope of the Royalist side to give him chance of a speedy home-coming, save to the old churchyard yonder To-morrow's like to be a heavy day, so grudge not the Captain Lis last hour."

In a low, oak-panelled room, tho flickering firelight showed the only two occupants of it,' a man booted and spurred ready for the saddle, save for hat and cloak flung aside, and a girl with shining grey eyes and tumbled brown curls: — "Little one, I would before heaven I might have had you longer to clierish—but this last hour has been sweet; its memory will carry me through the dark work we may see to-morrow, Frhen we meet those traitor hounds, but —if I should not come back—perhaps the great God means to give you a son—to be a soldier like his father and his father's father —we Lands have over been for the sword, and camp, and the hot fight. Dearest, our love has been a thing of such short lite wo met but one year ago. Think you this tender flower has blossomed but to be roughly torn from its stern and ■ ground under heel? Oh, no, no! should < i the steel of .some traitor_ dog find its mark, there must be life given us sometime, somewhere, when the happiness jiow snatched from us shall be given back in even fuller measure. "Dearest, it wants but four hours till the dawn, when my men must have ridden far towards Newbury. Little love, it is not—farewell! Once more 1 must hold you close. Ah, those little curls—those eyes—all mine!'

Tn the gathering dusk a little straggling company of horsemen came over the brow of a hill, riding slowly towards the twinkling lights of an encampment in the valley below. Brandon and his companion, riding a little in ad/auco of the rest, spoke but little, airl from their dejected look and fitful :oT1 J C! " cation it would have seemed that do. eat nnd not victory had crowned- tlieir cause in the second battle. "I would with all my heart that the day might have gone to those closecropped Puritan dogs, could we in exchange but have Land with us tonight!" exclaimed Brandon at length. There was firo and sorrow in his comrade's reply:— . ~ "Oh, saw you Tiow he bore himself in the fight, Brandon ? The smile was ever and again in his eyes, save when another's death drew pity tnere instead. Methinks happy hours were more in his mind than blood and steel this day. Those traitor dogs! May the hand that aimed_ the blow know no lighter work this side eternity I It s ill news must go to his lady."

Norwood, April 29, 19—. Pear Aunt alary,—lf you guessed and guessed from now until midsummer, you'd never guess what's happened! Jenny and the curry Captain are engaged. He's been here for a fortnight, and has hardly stirred from her elbow all that time. Alas _ for the weakness of feminine resolution, and alas for the undarned socks and the unfed chickens 1 We now understand .many things that wo formerly saw through a glass darkly; we understand