Page 1 Advertisements Column 8

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11607, 9 August 1892, Page 1

j straight up lo where the ill-starred man was standing. There was a little catch in her voice as she spoke, but she got the words out gallantly enough. " I beg your pardon," she said, •' but there is a carriage waiting to take me to the Sea View. "■ I should be very pleased— it's such an awful night— there is plenty of room — " • Here her voice trailed away incoherently. I The muffled man turned almost with a start, and faced her. Neither of them could see the others face for the pitchy darkness. Their voices seemed to come out of space. " It is most kind of you, really most kind indeed: If you \yould be so very good as to allow me to sit' on the box of your carriage I should be very grateful indeed. It isn't much of a walk, but I am a little lame just now—" She interrupted him eagerly. _ " Oh, no I couldn't think of letting you ride on the box on such a night as this You might catch your death of cold. Please come inside. We are both going to' the same place. You had much better." The man stood a moment doubtfully, trying hard and ' fibpele ssly to discover what the owner of ihe sweet girlish voice was like. Then his. head turned in the direction of the road, where the shining wall of rain seemed to bar all passage. Through the wall the yellow lights of the carriage glittered like the eyes of some forest beast. The man gave a sigh. " If you are quite sure that it will not put you out," he began. Marie Antoinette interrupted him again, and this with more decision in her voice. " No, no, indeed it won't, you really must come." She turned and walked tow*rds the carriage ; he followed lamely. By this time Marie Antoinette's porter .had turned up with her belongings, and was dexterously packing them away inside and outside of the vehicle. " You had better bring your things too," said Marie Antoinette to the man. •• There will be room for some inside and there is tarpaulin to cover those on top." " Keally I feel ashamed of being so much trouble," said the stranger gratefully. " It's no trouble at all," Marie Antoinette answered, and then they were both silent while the slightly amazed porters proceeded to stiw away the different properties of their respective clients. One porter opened the door of the carriage Marie Antoinette got in and settled herself in a far corner. The man paused again as if hesitating. " You are quite sure ?" "Oh quite. Please get in." If he were trying to see her face or she curious to see his, in each case curiosity was baffled. The lamp shed no light that bbtrayed his face or hers. There was a clink of silver in the hand of the porter, the stranger got into the carriage and stowed himself away in the opposite corner to Marie Antoinette. Various hat boxes, bundles and rolls of sticks and umbrellas were huddled in between them. Then with a lurch the carriage trundled of! into the darkness. It was an odd drive. Everything was as black as a wolf's mouth ; how the driver managed to steer was a marvel to Marie Antoinette. Nothing was to be heard but the horrible driving of the rain, the raging of the wind and, between gusts, the distant .sobbing of the sea. The muffled man in the corner tried to speak now and then, and Marie Antoinette tried to answer him, but the noise was too great for articulate conversation, the situation a little too awkward. Marie Antoinette felt pleased when the stranger subsided into absolute silence. Shi "was beginning to wonder if her mother would be very much shocked by her unconventional act ; if the people at the hotel would be very mijch, surprised- to see her get off the carriage with a strange man. She did not repent of her impetuous kindness, but she was vaguely beginning to wish it had not been called for. She found herself wondering what the man was thinning of, in his corner, wondering what he was like, wondering how old he was. At length there came gleams of light into the blackness, at length the steady speed of the horse slackened, at length the carriage came to a slop before the portion of the hotel from which a great gush of warm light yawned out upon the streaming world. The door of the carriage was opened, Marie Antoinette was nearest the door. With a muttered " good-night" she leaped out of the carriage, and under the shelter of the huge umbrella that the hotel servant held, ran lightly up the steps and into the big hall. Another second and she was in her mother's arms, and holding her father by the hand. Then her mother carried her away upstairs to a cosy room, a bright fire and tea, while her father stayed below and looked after her belongings. In five minutes she had forgotton' all about her unknown companion. When Marie Antoinette came down to breakfast next morning, the rain was still falling stiadily. The long breakfast-room looked out through the while eyes of several windows, upon the troubled sea, livid green where it was not a livid yellow or a livid brown, and striped with yeasty lines of curdled foam. A few dismal s.,ips, with sails as black as ink, flittered their «raf across the wet waste— and Marie Antoinette wondered whether there were more ww above them or below them, as they drifted on their course. They had a table in the window, she and her father and mother, for Mrs. Gilmore had an enquiring mind, and loved to see whatever .was going on, even when the prospect was no more pleasing than a drenched and deserted beach. General Gilmore absorbed himself in the Timci, gSyhich 1 -; read habitually — not because he liked it, but because It afforded him an opportunity for feeling argumentive — and kept his ideas from rusting. Marie Antoinette amused herself by looking about the room. People always interested her, she liked speculating about them, and imagining romances in their lives. Every living being, she used to say in that pretty emphatic way of her's, which so excellently became her, "is a walking, breathing novel, if one only knew it." She had just been speeding the shuttle of her fancy through the warf and woop of a fictitious narrative, in which a stout red-faced man, and a thin pale-faced woman at a distant table played their melancholy parts, when a voice behind ' her startled her and captivated her attention. It belonged to one of two young men who had come into the roo.m and taken the table behind the Gitmorcs. It was quite a familiar voice, a.n.d it had the effect of banishing the red-faced man and the pale-faced woman into the azure of the past. This was what the voice was saying, apparently in answei to some question. " I assure you I haven't the least idea what she was like. That is the funny part of it. She might be as nqly as sin or as old as Mrs. Methusalah for ail that I know to the contrary." Another voice laughed. "Poor fellow. I hope not. Though, really, it doesn't matter." "No, of course not," the familiar voice resumed, " and yet, do you know, I should like to think that my goddess out of a machine was pleasant to look upon. Now that I reflect, she cannot possibly have been very Old, for her voice had that softness of quality which only belongs to youth!. An old woman might have a voice as musical but never a voice so fresh as that one was." And the familiar voice sighed. [To be Continued.] \TT HY WILL YO />%»>&w. V V suffer \ r (g9r ' \ NERVOUS WASTIN W^pt^ t DEBILITATINGDInS'™. fa) SEASKS which destroy the V %M*f VITAL FORCES OF MAN r ß >.ot-' HOOD. You may now euro yourselves without CONSULTING A DOCTOK. Send 6 (N.Z,) Penny stamps for the new MEDICAL BROCHURE, containing the French method of QUICK PERMANENT SELF-CURE. " Address— Parisian Agency Co., Box7GG Sydney. ■ANTBD~Known-That a stock of Groceries ia kept on tho premises. Also Smoked Fish, Cigars, Cigarettes and Bread— in fact everything, a he City Heatauiunt, Victoria Avenu,e.