Mary's Great Mistake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3018, 15 October 1908, Page 2

Mary's Great Mistake.

CHAPTER lll.—Continued. It was Lady Hungerford who drove him to the act, which was about the one thing he had done that did not meet with his mother's approval. "Look here, mother, darling; I can't stand this; Aunt Anne has thrown that Blackbourne girl at my head for the last time. I'm off." "Not abroad again, Paul?" Lady Emily had said with a quick little catch in her cheery voice that was rather pathetic. Paul had sat down beside her and tenfolded her pretty hand in his ■while he explained what his plans were.

Lady Emily was just a little shocked.

"But, Paul, my dear, to go ebout with travelling actors, it—it doesn't sound quite nice; and then, my dearling, it isn't as if there were any need of your doing this; you are never likely to want your music as a profession. Besides, what would your Aunt Annie and Uncle Rupert

say?'* "A good deal of unnecessary gabble one can be very sure of that, if they knew anything about it; but that is just what I don't intend shall happen."

"But, Paul!" "But, mother!" He bent forward and kissed her, laughing a little at her dismayed expression, ana then he went on to explain further. He should only go for a month or two. Narini had told him it would be the best thing in the world, and lie was obliged to go with a second-rate company because he was not a sufficiently advanced player for any other; it was a fancy, a silly one, perhaps, but a decided one. There was a curious touch of Bohemianism in this stalwart young Englishman. "I want to get away from-Aunt Anne for a little while, and I want to turn over in my mind what 1 am going to do with myself. A chap must do something. I hate waiting for dead men's shoes, and Uncle Rupert, please Heaven, will live for many a day yet. So lam going away as much to hava a ' big think as anything else. I am always a little 6orry you did hot put me'to some profession, mother darling; I am not built for an idle man."

Of course he got his own way; his mother could never refuse him, and in this latest whim he found an unexpected ally in his sister. "It sounds dtlightful," Laurie had said, and she gave a little sigh of something like envy. "You don't suppose they would take me as prima donna, do you, Paul? I should love it."

Elaborate schemes were laid to keep Lady Hungerford in ths dark. There never would have been an end to her tongue's tirade if she had had an inkling: of Paul's extraordinary and unusual decision. She was told vaguely that he was going to London, and thence would go visiting with some of his numerous chums. Paul had a set of chambers in town and he ran up there now and then for a night when the company was near; his letters were forwarded from there, his mother alone having his new address every week. The month or two which he had spoken of when he departed grew , into six. Then into a year. Paul had been home once or twice and had presented himself each time, of course, at the big house, more handsomely charming than ever, but Lady Hungerford.was dissatisfied. "You ought to come and settle down here now, Paul," she had said the last time he had appeared in her drawing-room. "You will begin to forget this is your home. And you ought to start making some sort of acquaintance with the duties that will come to you by and by; it is time, too, you took a wife. All the Hungerfords have married young. You are past twenty-seven now. Uncle Rupert married me when he was three years younger than you are now."

"Ah! but unfortunately I can never hope for Uncle Rupert's good fortune," Paul had answered with grave courtesy that betrayed itself a little in a momentary twinkle of his eye.

t Lady Hungerford "had accepted the compliment affably. "There are just as nice girls to be found now as then," she declared, but with an air of one stating something that was not quite true. "I have not come across them, Aunt Anne, and I don't think I am in a hurry." This had been Paul's remark on his last visit home in the early part of the autumn. His mother had reveled in his presence during the week he had stayed. She saw no change in him, save that I q was handsomer than ever in her eyes. His sister Laurie, iio«vever, -who was a clever, shrewd, young woman', with double her share of perspicuity, immediately noted a subtle yet very marked difference in him. She could not define it or properly understand it, but she knew it was there, and she grieved a little in the .knowledge for there was a look on his face, a sort of shadow in his clear eyeF, that spoke to her, most distinctly of trouble and of heartache. She hoped all the time of his short visit that he would have confided in her; they had been such stanch, good friends all their lives, and she had been the recipient of most of his boyhood's secrets; but Pail made no sign, and Laurie had too much delicacy and tact to broach tl ( e subject to him. She had, of course, with her woman's intuition, guessed pretty nearly at the truth. She knew without his words that soiiiO strong influence had come into his life, and that this influence was closely linkeJ with sorrow. He had a new, thoughtful look on his face, the look of one who was used to watch something very near and

By EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS.

Selina's Love Story "An Inherited Feud," " Brave Barbara," "A Splendid Heart," tc., etc.

dear to him, and yet who had a sense of hopelessness mixed in with his tender care. It was a woman. Laurie Hungerford knew it most certainly, and her love and fears filled in the rest of the picture doubtfully and sadly. She kept her thoughts to herself, but she thought none the less, and she read between the lines of his cheery, boyish letters that never failed to come regularly alter he had returned to the company and bi3 selt elected duties. Lady Emily had been quietly disappointed when Paul had not arrived at Birchdale for Christmas. She had a hard task to satisfy Lady Hungerford, who considered it a very strange thing that her nephew should elect to spend the festive season away from his home; and took a great deal of trouble to impress this same fact upon her sister-in-law. Laurie was the only one who guessed a little of Paul's true reason for not being with them at Christmas. She grew very unquiet about her brother; she did not know how to act; and when his letter had come just before the beginning of the new year, in which'he had declared his wish to accompany the company on their Australian trip, she grew more unquiet still. She was troubled on her mother's account, too, for Lady Emily she knew would fret in her gentle, uncomplaining way over this long journey her boy meant to take; but she was more troubled about Paul himself. It was so evident to her that he was no longer a free agent, that this other influence was growing more and more into his life and being. How would 'it end? What would come of it? Laurie pondered the matter over to himself for some days. The New Year was born, and was nearly a week old, and still she could arrive at no good arrangement in her mind. Har mother had written, consenting, of course, to the Australian scheme and shedding a few quiet tears as she did so. There had been some serious consultations between the three, Lady Emily, Laurie and Dawson, as to the best explanation to give to the folk up at the big house, and just as his sister had almost, arrived at a determination to pay him an unexpected visit and speak openly to him on the subject that was oppressing and grieving her so much, there came another letter from the wanderer, a brief, curt letter, in which he simply said he was not going to Australia, that he had resigned his position with the operatic troupe, and that he would be at Birchdale by the end of the week.

The end of the week had arrived and here was the household of The Elms in a state of keen delight and excitement, ready to welcome the young master home again. The only shadow on the happiness of the moment was Lady Emily's indisposition, which she herself would have pooh-poohed but which Dawson and Laurie refused to be allowed to be treated so lightly. "Paul would never forgive me if I let you go and meet him with a cough like that," Laurie declared, while Dawson autocratically remarked: "She didn't care what Mr Paul might like, but out of the house her lady did not stir that day!" So Lady Emily had recourse to her correspondence to pass the time till the pony carriage should return from the station and her boy should be clasped in her arms once again, and Dawson mounted guard over her as it were and took care of her as if she were a child who needed watching. (To be continued.)