Copyright Story. A LITTLE PRESENT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue XXIV, 15 December 1900, Page 1103

Copyright Story. A LITTLE PRESENT.

By

JOHN STRANGE WINTER.

CHAPTER I. She was all alone in the world, the girl about whom I am going to tell you. Perhaps the most terrible thing possible that can happen to a young thing is to find himself or herself quite alone, with neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. It is bad enough when kind aunties and generous uncles come to the rescue, for nobody can ever quite fil'l the place of a child’s natural protectors; but when aunties are always called “aunt,” and uncles are stern and wanting in generosity, then to the ypung, loneliness is doubly terrible, doubly appalling. This was the sad case of Myra Barty, for she had found herself, at no more than fourteen years old, bereft of both her parents and of her only sister, all of whom had been carried away in the course of a few weeks by a terrible epidemic then raging in the neighbourhood where they lived. Four years had gone by since Myra had stood by the open grave of all her family hopes, since she had stared down with hard, burning eyes, that had not yet known. the luxury of tears, upon the oaken lid which hid from sight all that was left of the kind, handsome, easy-going father, who had never in the whole course of his life given her a harsh, cross word or look. She had wept many bitter tears since that day, though such relief had then been denied her, she had suffered many humiliations she had over and over again been made to feel that she was but mere flotsam and jetsam on life’s tide, that she must be humble and grateful, that she must subordinate herself in her new circumstances to the level almost of nothingness. She was freely drilled in the full heinousness of a professional man having the want of forethought and prudence to die leaving a human waif to the care and charge of her mother’s people and many and many a time Myra Barty went to her hard little bed—for Mrs Aumoniere knew her duty too well to pamper her by giving her a soft one—and sobbed out to the dark night that she was glad, yes, glad, that her mother, her dear, darlino- soft-eyed, sweet-voiced mother, had gone before ever she had known the change in kith and kin that the loss of a few hundreds a year could make. “I’m hard, I can stand it,” she whispered fiercely one night to the winter’s dark. “But mother’s heart would have broken, and my darling Ethel couldn’t have held up under this. I thought you so cruel to take them all, dear God,” she went on, “but You knew —You knew. As for me,” the fierce whisper hissed out, “I am hard, I am strong. I’ll live through. I’ll get through. I’ll tire them out by bearing everything. Yes, I will.” So four years passed by. They were long and dreary, but the longest and dreariest years come to an end in time, and so did these. Mrs Aumoniere did her duty by Myra, in the strictest sense of the word. She was we’ll and carefully educated, she was plainly, but carefully fed. She was with equal care kept from knowledge of evil, and all the virtues were persistently drummed into her until she longed to do something, anything, that was unmistakably wicked, just by way of proving that she yet possessed a soul and a will of her own. Then she was 'launched into the world to do the best she could for herself. and she became governess to two little girls in an English family living in Russia. Yes, it was rather a far cry from the pleasant Rondon suburb where the Aumonieres lived, to Holy Russia; but the chance had offered, the monetary consideration was good, thirty pounds a year, to be precise, and the distance was, in the eyes of Myra’s aunt, no insuperable objection, since it would mean freedom from the necessity of sheltering Myra during her holidays. “Quite providential, my dear John,” said Mrs Aumoniere

to her husband. “The very best thing in the world for her. And perhaps some Russian merchant may —may —” “Take her off your hands for good and all," ended John Aumoniere, brusquely. “Poor little girl, it seems hard to send her off into the unknown like this.” “Pray, don’t be foolish, John,” rapped out the good lady, sharply. “Remember the old saying in which there is so much wisdom, ‘Charity begins at home.’ With some people it stops there too. but we have not done that. I took in poor Mary's child, and have done my duty by her; and now she has a chance opened out to her that may land her anywhere. But we have a daughter of cur own to bring out this year, to say nothing of the younger girls, who must have their turn by and by. It would be nothing short of criminal to keep Myra at home just now. especially when we have such an opening for her.” So Myra Barty, having been plainly, but still sufficiently equipped for her new life by her aunt, tipped on the sly with a ten pound note by her uncle, watched with eager excitement by her young cousins, who all then looked upon her as a lucky girl, who was going to a romantic and unknown lite, said good bye to her English home and to her own people, and her place knew her no more. 1 may as well say at once that the girl was lucky, and that her lines fell in pleasant places. She was not lovely, or even very pretty, but she was bright and fresh and wholesome, with soft eyes, out of which a soul was shining, she had a slim, pretty figure, and her manners were charming. She was such a girl as you may see by the dozen in any part of England, where nobody thinks very much of them. But in Russia she was a. success. Partly because the Lennoxes were tied in Russia by the strongest claims of property and business, and so anything or any - one fresh from home, as they always spoke of England, was as a breath of sea air to them. The great business house in Petersburg, of which Mr Lennox was the head, allowed the home in which Myra found herself to be run in great style and comfort. Mrs Lennox from the very first day treated Myra more as a friend than anything else. “You don’t know what it is to me, Miss Barty,” she exclaimed, “to have a young English girl like yourself with us altogether. I yearn so for home and my own people, although, God knows, Alick has been good to me and mine. But he has lived in Russia always; he doesn’t understand my feelings as he would do if he was an exile as I am.” “I suppose you do feel an exile,” said Myra. “I never shall—mJ people have been good to me, but excepting my uncle, none of them really care for me. I shall never yearn to go back.” “Ah! that is the uncle who brought you up. You were his niece.” “No, I am only his niece by marriage,” said Myra. “But he is much—much more to me than my aunt is. And yet she is good—oh! yes, she took me in when I was left—and I have nothing to say but ingratitude of her. But my uncle loves me.” She let the last sentence drop as if it had been drawn from her unwillingly. Mrs Lennox took her hand in hers. “Then you won't feel staying out here with me,” she said. “You won't always be hankering after your home and your own people. It will be a great comfort to me—l know we shall get on, you and 1, splendidly.” And so they did. Little by little M\ra became acquainted with the history of the family, of which she was now one. How George Treward, Mrs Lennox’s brother, and ten years her senior, had gone to Petersburg when a mere boy, because his gift lay in the power of acquiring languages. A mere chance threw him into contact with the then head of the firm of Lennox and Co., Alick Lennox’s father

with the result that he had never wandered into other fields, and was iu>w a junior partner. More than that, pretty Miss Treward proved herself a lodestar to Alick Lennox when he was on a visit to England, and consented to cast in her lot with his. and look upon Russia as the land of her adoption from that time forward. Thus did the home of Lennox and Co stand when Myra Batty found herself in the double position of governess to the two little girls, Edie and Connie, and of companion to Mrs Lennox herself. it was an easy post. Servants were plentiful in the Lennox household, and to the little girls they wen each and all devoted. There was plenty of time on Myra’s hands, plenty of pleasure offered itself to her, life was luxurious and different from anything to which she had been used before, and Myra, unlike Mrs Lennox, never knew what it was to pine for the land of her birth, or for her own kith and kin. So somewhat more than a year went by. At Christmas. Myra received a few letters from England. One from her uncle enclosing a Bank of England note for five pounds, written from the office, and wishing her all manner of kind things. Anothercamefrom Mrs Aumoniere, and was full of good advice. and rather like a. crystalised ser. mon. In this letter was a. small sheet of English penny stamps

"1 enclose you five shillings with which to buy yourself some trifle, my dear niece,” said Mrs Aumoniere. “Being connected with a mercantile house as you are 1 imagine you will be able to dispose of them without Oitticulty. Your uncle is sending yon something himself. 1 dare say it will be more than this, but 1 do not know Save all you can, Myra, for you never know when the sun of prosperity maj| disappear behind the clouds of adversity, and it is always best to be pre-* pared for a rainy day.” “Myra felt that the letter was kindly meant, and knew that all the advice was good; but there were tears in her eyes as she replaced it in its envelope. Did her aunt forget altogether that she was young, still quite young? Did she never realise thut she loved pretty things like other girls, that she liked to forget that she was a slave, fast held in toils of poverty—a slave who must always keep hard facts well in hand, who could never, never hope to be free from carping care and sordid needs, even while the joy of living had full possession of her, and her young blood danced in her veins like some bright sparkling wine? Ah, no, in her aunt's eyes she was a creature set apart from all that made life pleasant and joyous. And she had not yet seen her twentieth birthday. Toor little My-ra! (To be continued.)