Complete Story. A REGENT IN ARCADY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XX, 19 May 1900, Page 946

Complete Story. A REGENT IN ARCADY.

By

S. Elgar Benet.

At five o’clock of an afternoon in May the old house flung its. shadow across the road to the meadow beyond.

There was the. picturesqueness of vast proportion, decay and delapidation about the place.

Trees of heaven thrust their branches against the windows and under the eaves. The strip of grass lost its green in the highway. There was no fence, but a short paved walk bordered with box bushes terminated in a gate. Those on either side were of unusual height ; an arch had been cut through them. d

Two young women on a buckboard stopped in the shadow. “(th. oh !” said one, "the dear old place ’. 1 don't believe there is a square inch of paint on it. It is an enchanted spot.”

“Wickedly enchanted. Look at these outbuildings. A puff of wind would level the lot.”

"Hut they are such an exquisite gray. Yoh might paint them all with a wash of lampblack, a little blue in the half-tones and just a trace of yellow where the lights are strongest.” "1 shouldn't paint them ; but T can thing with satisfaction of a coat of whitewash outside and in.” “Save the mark 1”

“And those fields. They won’t get enough off them to keep a wooden horse through the winter. They won't get anything but broomsedge.” “There isn't anything in the world as lovely aS broomsedge, especially' in October, when it begins to burst out all up the stalks like make-believe thistles. Before sunset I’ve seen the brown blades turn to a tawny pink and the down glisten like silver. It is beaut i fid.”

“A corn st übble of a second growth of clover would be much more gratifying. Shall we go on ?” “Wait a little while. I'm going to get dow n and look through the areh.” “Why ? "When you can see under and over and all around it from here.” Klien sprang to the ground. “Call for me as you come back,” she said.

Site scarcely expected the buckboard to go on. What if there should be dogs or cows ? There was the sound of a key in the lock and the door swung back. A stream of yellow light ran oyer the shadow and a woman came out with a watering-can in her hand. She was small and old. and her keen eyes were sunken beneath the prominent areh of her brow. “Won't you come in ?” she called. Klien held out her hands and struck as she seldom failed to do with strangers, the keynote of favour. "Your house is beautiful. I wanted to see it closer. Y'ou do not mind, do you ?” “To be sure 1 don't.” said the mistress ; “come in and look around as much a« you like." Klien followed her into the hall. She saw through the door at the far end a green yard and the inevitable out buildings going to decay'. Mrs. Hail opened the windows in one of tin* darkened rooms. “Sit down. Y'ou must be tired. 1 reckon you didn't walk .from nowheres ?” "1 drove out from town. I had never been on this road before. My name is Klien Cheritree." "Any relation to the Cheritrees across the country about ten mile?” "rm afraid not.” She was regarding the furniture critically. Not antique, but sufficiently old-fashioned. “Yes,” s-aid Mrs Kail, “this is a good old place. I think so; a body ought to nlxiut Iter home. But it ain’t what it once whs. I come here a bride, forty-seven years next Christmas, an" I was twenty-three on my weddingday. Before the war" her cheek Hushed and her eyes brightened with the proud recollection—"child, you ought to a-seen this place then. My husband Owned three Thousand acres right around here, an’ we had ninetyseven coloured people. 1 bad ten myself when we were married. The place is gone down. It takes money to keep it up. The land's poor, too, anti fertilizer's dear. Crops don't amount to nothing, though I don't, ■neon Io cast reflections on Francis. Francis makes considerable truckin',

but Francis’!! never be the farmer his father was before him.” A voice from without called loudly: “Aunt Kitty! Aunt Kitty! Don't you think that calf's gone an’ got out again?” Mrs Rail ran down the hall. “1 do think in my heart,” she said by way of apology. Klien followed. Over one of the sunny meadows, ankle-deep with its straggling grass, a black calf darted, pursued by a girl. She and Mrs Rail flung their arms above their heads and shouted unintelligible things to the calf. Ellen caught her frock over her arm and ran with the others. The calf, having perhaps a poor opinion of her ability, kept near her. She seized the rope and held him fast. A man with a hoe over his shoulder came down the stable road and Spoused in surprise. He leaped the fence when he became aware of the two women hurrying over the field. Ellen held out her smarting hands. Across the palms the rope had drawn a faint line of blood. Her eyes filled with tears. “Confound the calf!” said the man. He would probably have laughed if Turah had been so babyish. Mrs Rail came up with Turah.“La! Francis,” she said, “that calf'll be the death o’ me. If this is what comes o’ havin’ blooded stock careerin’ over the fields three an' four times a day, the old red an' white kind's good enough for me. At my' age. too! My sou Francis, Miss Ellen (Clieritrqe—she ain't no kin to the Cheritrees across the country. Francis—an' Turah.” Turah looked at Ellen and wished the hurt might have been across her own broad palms. She and Francis, with their fine, strong bodies, thought the frail, pale creature with the expression of tragic pain upon her face because she had chafed her hands, a pitiful sight. “Come in the house an’ I’ll put some lily an' whisky on it,” said Mrs Rail; "lily an' whisky's grand for hurts. You won't know anything’s wrong with your poor little hands to-morrow.” When the buekboard stopped at the gate everybody' was sorry' to see it. Turah had hastened tea, and they had been mery over curds and cream and biscuit and fruit, and Ellen had concluded an arrangement whereby she was to see more of her new acquaintances.

“1 won't be the least trouble in the world,” she said. "I can get up very' early. 1 don’t mind naving breakfast at seven, only' 1 shall have to be called at six. And I can live on bread and milk. It is so good of you to let me come.” They followed her down to the green areh and watched her drive away. Ellen's mild rhapsodies elicited slight response. “I wish you had come. Henrietta. They are the simplest, best creatures; so kind, so ” “Agreeable?” “More. It was like living in another age. They made me feel artificial. I felt ashamed of everything I had done to place me so fur away from nature.” “They said all sorts of pretty tilings?” "(inly kind things that came directly from the heart.” "How many of these paragons are there?” “Three.” “All women?" “A son. The girl has the strongest, best faee. Not beautiful, but good. 1 think it would be a benefit to share their home for a while. One eoukl not help but have wider sympathies and a larger comprehension of life." Henrietta looked down from her superior height". “What nonsense now, Ellen? This is an old foe with a new faee. I have heard something like it before.” Three weeks later Henrietta at Deal received a bulky mail. "My own dearest Henrietta,” wrote Ellen, “J am in Arcadia. Altruri.i, Utopia. Letters are never written from these places. My own is the first on record. I am living nt Hint exquisite old house on the Franklin Road. You remember the evening we went out on the backboard? I may as well confess 1 am a summer

boarder, but they do not allow this plnasc to übtrutie itself upon me. I am one of them—a friend ami sister tu Francis mid Turah, aml as much a nieee to Aunt Kitty as Turah heiself. Do not be shocked. These are not common people, but simple-minded, plain in tlie sweetest, best sense of Hie word. 1 have learned to do things connected with housekeeping, and love my tasks. There is poetry about them if one has vision to perceive it, upon the principle of some hymn 1 have seen somewhere, "Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, Makes that and the action fine.’ Maybe the quotation is not correct, but yon have my meaning. I take entire charge ot the dairy—the coolest, dimmest place, with roses blooming over the windows and a stream of water running all round three sides and gray milk crocks with blue clover leaves on them in it. I make butter every day' in a. tall churn, and print it in little pats with acorns and wheat, ami Francis says my butter always brings five cents more than any other butter in the market. I really am of use to them. 1 should be satisfied to make butter all my life. It reminds me of the poor French queen and her dairy. Wasn't it the French queen? 1 am not surprised she was fond of it. 1 wanted to have some ealieo frocks made like Turah’s, so that we might look more alike, but Francis asked me please not to. I have tucked up the skirt of those three Chambrays, and taken the lace and ribbon off the waists. And I have some little frilled aprons with bibs (hat fasten behind and some frilled cults to turn back over my' elbows whenever it is necessary to roll up my sleeves—and it always is in making butter—so that I think the Chambrays are more becoming than they were at first. YVe breakfast at six ,o’clock on a porch that is covered with a climbing rose and a jasmine. YVe have tea served down by the spring. Life seems one delightful picnic-rif it were not for. its sweet seriousness. YVe have music, too. Francis plays on the violin. Not to suit you. poor unfortunate scientist! No music master has spoiled anti crippled his interpretation of pathetic negro melodies and old-fashioned airs. I thought last night I had never heard anything so beautiful. The moonlight seemed gathered in the 1 tops of the trees. All was breathlessly' still, and the only living thing in the world was the voice of the violin. Was it living after all? 1 have a theory that the violin enshrines a soul which speaks nt the violinist's will. All violinists have occult powers. We are entirely' alone. There are no neighbours to disturb us. Sometimes we. go in a farm cart to a little meeting house in the .'woods. The men sit on one side and the women on the other, and the women kiss each other after the service. It's very interesting. 1 want to tell you about —but, oh, dear ! it’s milking time. The cows —seven of them, counting the heifers—have come up to the bars. 1 hear- them. 1 have learned to .milk, and have the cutest little three-legged milking stool. Who was the writer who said no one lived truly unless he lived near, to Nature’s heart- ? Is the dear mother better ? Believe me, always your own devoted ELLEN.

I’.S.—You know' how I hate postscripts, my dear Henrietta, but I have just come upstairs and want to add a few lines to tell you about Francis'. Francis ami Turah are engaged to be married, and are very' devoted to each other. Turah is, I’m sure. I have the confidence of both. Francis has a high standard which he wishes Turah to reach, and he tells me just where she fails to realise his expectations. Francis is Turah’s standard. She does not want him changed, which is as it should be. You know J have always held a wife should reverence her husband, and, above all things, avoid a critical spirit. Have heard nothing from Brian. Have you ? No doubt he is, as I am, in some charmed spot where letters are unknown or forgotten. Yours, E.”

Henrietta's presence, when she stopped at Honey' Path on her way to the White Sulphur, was like a shower of rain upon a merry-making. Her positive individuality, which she never took the trouble to soften, made an unfavourable impression. Turah whs awkward, Francis no Florizel. and the prime mover in the protracted farce a rather mature young woninn in short skirts and frilled aprons, striking attitudes over an old-fashion-ed churn.

Three days of Arcadia were sufficient for her. By the light of a candle she packed her travelling bag.

Ellen sat by the window and looked but into the night.

If had rained and the leaves were dripping. The rays from the candle made a nimbus in the heavy air.

Now and then the wind shook dbwn a shower of raindrops. Ellen thought how well she had heard the sbund imitated by Senard's orchestra. She looked like a creature from ojtera bouffe, or a model for a Watteau fan. She leaned her head upoir hir arm and sighed. Henrietta was making herself disagreeable— a risk eVei*y one ran who stated faets to Miss Cheritree. “Y'ou are very unkind, Henrietta;” she said. “I wish I might lie unkind to some purpose. It is you who are unkind. You are amusing yourself at the expense of these good people, for they are good people, so unsuspicious they have no idea you are playing with them, and ” “I like them heartily. It is no-'ex-aggeration to say I love them.” “For how long ?” ■- • • 4 “1 shall never forget them.” > “By Christmas you will have forgotten their names. Besides, you cannot help but see the girl is miserable.'’ “Turah isn’t treating me properly,” said Ellen plaintively. “She no longer shows me the confidence I have a right to expect. I have not changed toward Turah.” “And Francis ?—though I think Mr. Rail would be more appropriate.” “1 have done my best to be a sister to Francis.” “ And Turah objects ? Y'ery unreasonable girl. Turah.” Ellen crimped the fold of her kerchief. 'Y'ou must know how humiliating it is for me to make such an admission ; but. Turah is, or fancies she is, jealous.” “1 should say she has abundant cause. I myself saw Francis with his arm around your waist.” “He looks upon me as a sister.” “Ami it was probably in an excess of brotherly affection that lie kissed the palm of your hands yesterday. My dear Ellen, you forget I have brothers of my own.” “You keep your brothers at such a distance.”

Henrietta tightened the straps of her bag. “We get on pretty well. No doubt you have told this dear new brother ■about Brian ?"

“They are not interested in my' private affairs, and I never bore'people by talking about myself. You wish to insinuate that I have been guilty of a vulgar flirtation.” “Is there any other sort ?” '

"You know. too. my opinion of" a flirtatious woman. The River Jordan could not wash her clean. Ugh ! when you think of them, those women are absolutely nasty.”

“Then you have not told him of Brian ?” “No.”

“Y’ou have acted vilely to him and his doting old mother, and treacherously to the girl.” Ellen crept into bed and er.'ed. Once she raised her head from her pillow to say :

I hope you will not mention these absurd suspicions to Brian.”

Henrietta replied at some length with the unconscious use of a slang expression :

YYhat do you take mo for ? Brian wouldn’t believe the truth if he saw it. I haven’t forgotten the music master episode.” Turah was gathering beans in the garden. It was a misty morning in September. Dew lay over the vines and marked the sp'ders’ webs among the weeds.

It was a relief to Turah to be where she need not struggle to hide her wretched feelings—where she was not compelled to listen to Ellen's light words and laughter. YY'hat was she in comparison with Ellen ? She said : “ I don't care ; I don't want fcim if he wants Ellen. Let him take Ellen.”

She fell to thinking what she would do when they were married. She supposed Ellen would take her place entirely, would look after the poultry and the housekeeping, except, what Auut Kitty still elung to. There would be no room for ]»er. “Turah ! Oh, Turah!” Ellen called. ." Where arc you ? 1 have come to help you." Turah hurried down the row' and poured the beans into a basket. “ 1 reckon 1 got enough.” she said f “ besides it’s nil wet in there. Look at my skirts.” ——z*

•'.“Then I’ll help you to shell them.” Turah lifted the basket and moved away.

“Wait a minute, ’’ begged Ellen. “I wanted to ask you something.”

She turned and looked down into Ellen’s eyes.

“ I can’t stay very long. There’s a heap o’ stuff to be got up for market.”

It was difficult for Ellen to frame lier question. She went close to Turah and put her anus around her neck. “ You don’t love me any more,” she said.

'There were tears in her blue eyes. Adverse opinion was a grievous wound. “I do,” cried Turah hotly; “ tain’t your fault if you’re prettier and sweeter than me.” She set down her basket and took Ellen's fragile body in her strong clasp.

“ Oh. I do wish you all the good and happiness in the world, more’n I could wish for myself if yon and him are happier so. You’re welcome to him, Ellen.”

There was the difference of ten years between them, but they reached a unity of opinion from opposite standpoints. Intentional evil or injury did not exist for Turah ; she had no comprehension of it. It did not exist for Ellen—she ignored it.

Ellen went to her room. For the first t'me since she came to Honey Path she began to feel bored and to look forward to the prospect of getting away.

She could not understand why Turah should spoil everything by such an assumption.

She looked a long while in the mirror. The Chambrays were becoming tiresome. There was the evidence of the sun on her neck and arms. She pulled the kerchief away from her breast and pusheel back her sleeves, where the skin was white and smooth in contrast.

Dinner was served under the trees by the spring. There were only the three women. The food palled upon Ellen’s taste.

When evening’ came she walked down a still, unfrequented road. She. wished to avoid Francis. Turah renunciation had suggested a possible embarrassment of riches.

I With a feeling of impatience she saw the waggon coming toward her, black against the yellow west.

. Francis leaned forward from the high seat. He was so deep in thought that he did not see her at first. She would have hidden had there been bush or stone large enough to conceal her. He leaped down and they followed the lumbering- waggon. “ I stopped at the post office as I come along and fetched these.” He gave her two letters, and watched her face as she turned them to catch the light. She scanned the date and said :

“August 29th. This must have been at. the office quite a while. It makes no difference, though. Had you a good sale ?” “ Pretty fair." “Too bad you will have to go again to-night.”

“I’m not tired. That's a. curious handwriting.”

“Yes.” she struck the letters against the palm of her hand, “ very singular.”

“ If I recollect, I brought you a letter from the same person in July.” < ■ ‘‘ They are •from Henrietta’s brother, and I think this last one means that any stay here is over.”

- Francis took her hand and held it fast. A thousand burning words rush,ed to his lips. I She began to talk rapidly in an endeavour to keep him from speaking. ■ ‘‘ You have been so kind to me—all of you —so sweet and good. Aunt Kitty could not have been more sc to a daughter and Turah has been a isister. As for you, how can I ever thank you for your goodness? Indeed, you must lie the brother I have alwayr wished for, materialized this summer. How dark it is growing ! Turah’s coffee will be cold. Let us walk faster.”

“Stop!” said Francis, “I’ve got something to say to you. When are you coming back again “ Soon, 1 hope.”

“ I’d come to look upon you as never going away. Promise when you come back it w ill be for good.” “ Have you forgotten Turah ?” she asked. “ You are engaged to marry Turah. Oh, Francis, how can you be i»o dishonourable ?”

“ I thought we'd both agreed to forget Turah this long time,” he answered.

Sh« felt weak and cowardly. An honest anger was foreign to her. ,

“ Who’s dishonourable ?” he demanded. “ Who made me forget Turah so that if 1 live to be s Hundred she can never be anything to again ? Who tolled me away from Turah with eyes and hands and lips and—yes—and words ?” Ellen looked across the fields up to the first faint stars. From somewnere a whippoorwill called and a bat circled close.

“ Why is it dishonourable to say I love you,” he persisted, “ when it’s the truth ?” She held up the letters. “Have they anything to do with “They are from Brian, Henrietta's brother. 1 shall marry him some of these days." “And you knew it two months ago?" “ 1 have known it live years.” She did not tell the truth even then. She had known it ten. “You have no right to speak so to me. If this were not so you were bound. .Nothing can excuse your faithlessness to Turah.” " Then you’ve been fooling me." He held her by the shoulders and told her such humiliating truths as only a plain man goaded beyond restraint could speak. She was thankful when he released her and permitted her to walk apart from him. The horses stood waiting at the liars. Ellen held out her hand. “ I’m sorry if I have offended you.” He lowered the bars and motioned her to leave him. She went between long rows of currant bushes to the house. There were visitors in the parlour to the left of the hull. The door stood open and a stream of light marked the bare floor.

She ran down the dim space and stood in the doorway. She felt herself a miserably treated creature.

A tall, middle-aged man got up froip the sofa along which he had thrown his remarkable length, and came to meet her. He greeted her as if she were but lately out of the nursery. She hid her face under the lapel of his coat and sobbed. “1 wish you’d take me home, Brian. I want to go home right away.” When Francis came in from the stable he found his mother and Turah disconsolate at the gate. The house had grown suddenly empty. “She’s gone, Francis,” said his mother, “ami left her kindest love for you.”

Iler voice echoed through the place and intensified its loneliness.

Towards midnight the waggon with its load of vegetables was ready for market. Francis fastened the cover and climbed up on the seat. Turah called from the door. She held a lighted lantern above her head and a bundle under her arm.

“Yon were going without your lunch and the lantern; and there’s so many bad places in the road.” As she held them up a gust of wind caught the lantern and swept it noisily from her hand.

The air was sweet with the odour of rain rushing over drenched fields and woods. Turah ran after the lantern and brought it back. “There’s an awful rain a-coming, I can hear it. Won't you wait till it’s over?”

He got down and led the horses to the sheltered side of the barn. The rain, hurling itself obliquely against the earth, caught him ueiore. he followed Turah within the door.

The mows were empty, and the vast ramshackle building' shivered and creaked. Through numberless breaches streams of water poured upon the floor. . .

Turah hung the lantern against tne wall. She and Francis leaned on opposite sides of the door and looked out.

Through the numbness that had taken possession of his faculties a sense of shame of his dishonour to her made itself felt. Shu said timidly: “She’ll come back again. I heard her say so. You know she hadn't seen her brother for a. mighty long time, and the other.” “Henrietta’s brother?” “Yes; Brian.” Francis repeated what Ellen had told him. “She is to marry Brian some of these days. She has known it five years.”

Turah bent forward and asked: “What did she mean about—about — the rest of us?” “I’ve been a fool, that's all. I've been worse than a fool to you, Turah.” “Don’t mind me,” she interrupted. “If my misery’d made your happiness, I’d be miserable all my life.”

He stretched out his hand in tlie darkness.

“It’s holding up,” he said. “I’d better be going.”

Turah followed him into the road. “’Good night. You'd better get along in." In obedience to a sudden impulse he leaned down and held out his hand. She took it in both her own and laid her face against it. “Good-bye. Take good care o’ your self.”

It was too dark to see even the outline of the waggon. She judged of its progress by the yellow light from the lantern that flashed into pools which lay thieky over the uneven surface of the road.

Francis went onward mechanically. The actors in the Honey Path farce passed before him—his mot her, Turah and Ellen, with the stereotyped sweetness of her pale face. He lived the summer over.

The lights on the outskirts of the city burned like yellow spheres through the misty rain. Across the road ran the gleaming iron of rails, from darkness into light and into darkness again. The gates were pointing skyward like ghostly sentinels. There came the. whirr and rattle of the approaching train, the flash of the headlight, and the long, wild scream of the engine leaping through the stillness.

He rose to his feet and looked down the track. A reckless impulse seized him. He raised his whip and brought its leathern thong down upon his horses’ flanks. They plunged forward upon the rails. He heard their shrill neighing. His eyes were blinded by the fierce light that encompassed him, and the train rolled away into the darkness, leaving a fiery scintillation in its wake. In November Ellen drove out with Brian to Honey Path.

She told herself fhat after the lapse of six weeks Francis must have had sufficient time to acknowledge his unreasonableness.

She went through the superfluous gate under its green arch. The door was ajar. She pushed it back. Turah was gathering into her apron the brown leaves that had blown in on the wind. They rustled crisply as she crushed them between her fingers. She looked up as Ellen stood in the light. There was no eha.nge. in the expression of her face.

Ellen knelt down beside her and put her arms around her neck. “You dear Turah! It is so good to see you again!” ►She would have kissed her. but Turah laid a hand upon her breast and kept her away. She was surprised in a dull way that she had no reproaches, for sometimes at her work in the lonely fields or among the cows she had pictured this meeting and terrible words had sprung to her lips. Now' she recognised the futility of upbraiding. "Is any one ill?" asked Ellen. “Aunt Kitty or Francis?” “She's in the back room,' said Turah. “Come and see her.” The room had an unfamiliar look. It had been arranged for winter. Mrs Hail sat in a corner near the fire. She kissed Ellen and made her sit down near her. “It’s chilly. The fall's cornin’ soon," she said. "I been lookin’ for you. I thought you’d come.” Ellen glanced at Turah, who sat in the window' and studied the dial of a tall clock whose hands pointed toward five. “Is—is—Francis— ’’ She could not complete the sentence. .'Tears ran over Mrs Kail’s wrinkled cheeks. “Ob, my poor hoy- my good boy! For hini to die like that. So young, too. not twenty-three till March, lie never gave me a cross word in liis life. All gone an’ him the only one left. He was my baby; no more’n six months when his father died. Seems like he always nearer to me for that—never to have no father to do for him. An’ he was such a good bov.”

Turah had taken her gaze from the clock and her eyes looked into Ellen’s with unspeakable reproach. To avoid this Ellen knelt down by the bereaved woman's chair and hid her face upon her knee. She wanted, too, to shut out the sight of that little old figure with the quick tears falling down upon the knotted hands which clasped and unclasped themselves in a restrained passion of grief. She felt those hands touch her hair as the story went on. “At three in the mornin’ I woke out of a sound sleep. Somebody called me. 1 got up and went to the window'. The night, was so black yo’ couldn't see yo' han’ before’ yo face. But 't.wnrn’t no use to go back to bed. 1 set there until daybreak, an’ when

■I went ilowpij -Turah she was already up au’ through with the milkin', au* by an’ by a man come up on horseback an' 1 knowed he had bad news for me. Seemed like 1 had been waitin’ for him the endurin’ night. An’ then later on—they brought him home."

The dignity of her grief changed to a tone of complaining. She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and sighed. “What am I to do with never a body to say a comfortin’ or a pleasant word? Some people are like a stock or a stone. No more feelin’. Y’ou’d a-thought Turah would have taken on some, considerin' her an' Francis was courtin’ once. I ain’t seen her shed a tear. Not that 1 got anything ag’in Turah in general. She's a good girl, but she ain’t got any feelin.’ When the men that holds the mortgage come to me after the funeral an’ said now Francis was gone the best thing 1 could do was to get out an' sell the place for what it would bring. Turah stood up an' told 'em that so long as the interest was paid that's all they had to look to, an' that she was goin’ to take Francis’ responsibility, au’ I should die here if J liked. An’ Turah works outdoors an’ in. Kails wasn’t used to this before the war, but what’s to be done? She tends market, just as he used to. She ain’t afraid. Things go on, as far as money's concerned, as well as ever, 1 can’t deny; better, maybe. Francis, poor fellow, hadn't patience to look after small matters. She got nine dollars a hundred for the last cabbages, an’,” with mournful complacency, “cabbages are still arisin'. But Turah ain’t got any feelin’. If I begin to talk about Francis she says it's time to feed the hogs or milkin' time, or she's got to get up the load for market.”

Turah said nothing. At seventeen her girlhood had left her.

The reflection of the sun slipped from the wall.

Ellen made ready to leave. Mrs Rail rose weakly from her chair and kissed her.

“God bless you, child! He thought a monstrous lot of you.” At the door her eyes met Turah's for an instant, and Turah said in an impersonal fashion: “It's hard for her. Seems like it’d be good of God if she could go along with him. for she don't take any comfort with me. All I can do for her is to work, and I'd do that, anyway; I don't ever want to stop. His death wnrn't the hardest blow. But for her there ain't nothing more but just to wait by herself till she dies. No son, no daughter nobody but me.” “Good-bye,” said Ellen.

She was not brave enough to offer her meaningless pretty blandishments.

Turah watched her drive away into the mists that were shutting out the stretch of road. She locked the door and lifted the heavy bar. Afterward she went back to the grey room and took her place in silence by the desolate old mother whose tears at some potent recollection were again beginning to flow.-—“ Short Stories”

Mr James Booth, Stipendiary Magistrate, of Gisborne, died at his residence, Roseland, on Monday, after a brief illness. Deceased came to the colony in 1852, in connection with the Church Missionary Society, and in 1856 settled down at Pipiriki, on the Wanganui River, and engaged in teaching and pastoral pursuits. At the time of the Hau Hau outbreak in 1864 he and his family were made prisoners, and for three days and nights were kept in constant fear of being murdered, but their lives were spared, and they escaped, losing everything they possessed. Mr Booth subseque.ntly an active part in warfare against the rebels, being given a military charge at Upper Wanganui. When friendly natives were assailed at Jerusalem and run short of ammunition Mr Booth, with a Maori crew, paddled to Wanganui for fresh supplies and thus saved the allies, services for which he was thanked by the Native Minister. In 1865 he was appointed Magistrate at Wanganui, and two years later he was actively engaged in the suppression of the native rebellion in I’atea district, living in constant danger of being murdered. In 1883 he was transferred to Poverty Bay. where he gained the respect and esteem of tho whole community. Mr Eyre Kenny, the Wanganui Magistrate, arrives tomorrow to take up the duties of magistrate temporarily. The “Herald” urges that Mr Barton, clerk of tho court, is fully qualified to succeed Mr Booth, possessing the entire confidenc ■ of the community, and should be np pointed to the vacancy.