The Vendetta in the Backwater.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 12, 20 March 1912, Page 52

The Vendetta in the Backwater.

By

BRENDA ELIZABETH SPENDER.

'QTt'W HEN Archie came and asked mo jf a I to guess who it was that was XJljv living on the houseboat down the backwater, I said “Gregory Silver" at once, and surprised him pretty itonsiderably. No wonder either, for ho and Vin had only discovered it because they happened to have been hanging hbout in the post-office when he camo in for his letters. “ How on earth did you find out, Barby 1” said my brother. “I didn't find out—l guessed. It’s just the way that heroer and villains always turn up in stories, and, seeing that we don't know’ any heroes, it was bound to be that maw.” “Well, anyhow, there he is”—Archie tried to grind his teeth, but didn't manage it very convincingly—“lolling about on the river, eating the fat of the land like a green bay tree, whilst our poor old Phil !" He broke off and put his hands in his pockets, and t in imitated him, as ho usually does. I know that "Gregory Silver” doesn't sound nasty: it is innocent, simple minded, serious kind of name that might belong to a curate or a carpenter, and doesn’t suggest unlimited sin and sneakishness at all; but, seeing that Gregory Silver was responsible for so much tribulation that we could hardly manage to enjoy the summer holidays, it was only natural that we should regard his name as the pseudonym for everything that is bad. Phil, who is the eldest of us all —that is, the next to me above, and the cleverest and best-looking and the most delicate—had come down to little Abington quite unexpectedly a couple of weeks before on the very verge of despair, with the ends of his tie outside and one trouser turned up and one turned down, and h>d confessed to dad that he had lost his job. It was really an awfully nice job, in an office where there were large pictures of liners and a map of the world, with little red steppingstones between all the principal ports, and dad had taken the greatest pains to get it for him. being an artist himself. and knowing consequently how easy it is to lie good on a regular income and keep out of debt. Gregory Silver was in the same < ftiee, only be was a relation of the firm's, and didn't have so much to do. and, of course, he soon found out how keen Phil was on making Bionev and helping to start the bovs,

and lie persuaded him that the quickest and easiest way to do it, was by “putting a bit on a horse,” When Phil first said that, 1 thought he meant dressing it in its harness, but I found out afterwards that it was a name for betting. Anyhow, Phil believed him, and did it, and lost sometimes, and won sometimes, and always Gregory Silver bucked him up with the Idea that the next time would be a big success, until at last ho and Phil, between them, took some of the firm's money, and the firm found out. It —or they; 1 don't quite know which it ought to be —was very angry, but Phil got all the blame, and Gregory Silver hadn’t the decency to own up that he, too, had taken some of the money. The firm said that it wouldn’t prosecute Phil on account of his youth, but it sent him away from the ofllca with the liners and the maps where he had been so good and so happy, and told him never to come back again, Toor dad was dreadfully upset, and put his elbows on his paint, palette and covered his face with his hands, and I think he musthave feared then that Phil would come to a bad end and be an artist after all. Then, when 1 had hugged Phil until the back of his collar was all smeary, and Archie had bitten his nails —his own nails, I mean, of course—until they were sore, and that means that Tin did it as well, and none of us could think of anything better to do, dad arose and gave him his blessing and the money ho had saved from his last picture that sold, towards the rent, and Phil went back to T.ondou to look for another job. Of course we hung round dad. avoiding his painty elbow, ami told him that it would all come right in the end. but privately, between ourselves, we didn’t think so. IVe each made a point of telling the other two that we should have done exactly what Phil had if we had been in his place, but we knew that the honour of the Sandbergs had received a cruel blow, and wondered very much how the rent was going to be paid, and what would happen if it wasn't. I got wild ideas into my head about finding somebody with very, very unlettered children who would like me for a governess, and screwed my hair up in a bob when 1 was going to bed. and found that it made me look quite twenty; but, of course. it was folly, for there would Ins no one loft if I went away to look after the bovs and dearest dad.

You will understand from all that just how we felt when Archie and Vin discovered that Mr. Silver was enjoying himself on a houseboat in our backwater. First of all we joined hands and swore vengeance, and that delayed us rather, because we were in the middle of tea, and Vin had to lick the jam off his fingers before we could do it.. Then we finished tea, and then we went out in the tub to reconnoitre. 3?ho Tub Is our boat; she is very round and rather leaky, and Archie hasn’t improved her by putting a piece of glass into her under one of the seats for us to watch the flora and fauna in the water as we go along. Archie rowed, 1 steered, and Vin baled as necessary with the old saucepan which we keep in her for the purpose, and as we went wo decided on a plan of campaign. “If tie finds out who we really are ho won’t give us much chance, you bet,” said Archie, “lie’ll guess it's a vendetta first thing and clear out.” “IVe ought to be the alias something or others,” I said. “People always call themselves that when they don’t want to use their real names!” “Let’s pretend,” suggested Vin. “I'll be ‘Blackfoot the Brave,’ you can be ‘Two-toothed Monty,’ and Barby can bo {•> “Don't you be an idiot!” Archie can be awfully stern at times. “We must all have the same name, and it mustn’t be rotten nonsence.” In. the end we decided to call ourselves the “Sand-dabs,” because that’s what the village people have turned Sandberg into, either because we are generally dressed in canvas shoes for cheapness—and that’s what they call them—or because they have made a mistake. So that was settled, and with false smiles of friendliness upon our faces and hatred in our hearts we turned the Tub's nose into the backwater. It is a very quiet piece of water, dusky and deeply fringed on one side with willows which have beneath them a narrow stretch of cream-coloured sand, where the ripple yon make as you pass breaks almost silently. Usually the only sounds there arc the rustling of the trees, the sharp call of a coot or a heron, and very big but faint, the roaring of the weir round the bend in the river; but that evening as we rowed down it with the Tub’s blunt bows breaking the red reflection of the sun’s rays into hundred’s of glowing fragments, we coutd hear the “blam-blam” of a hammer and the sound of a man’s voice droning some sort of song even before the houseboat came in sight. It was moored under the willows and was a shabby old thing with Philomela painted very badly, on the bows in yellow, and none of the lace curtains and pot plants in window boxes which one usually expects, and Gregory Silver was standing on the deck on a rickety chair rigging up a very shabby awning, lie was dressed in the most flannelly sort of clothes, without a hat, and as he had no collar on there was a kind of high-tide mark where his

brown face ended and Ms white neck began; and he was such a tall, fine, ath-letic-looking young man that one could quite easily understand how Phil had come to chum with him and take hla word as law. Ilia face, too, when he turned and stared at us, breaking oft his song, wag an experienced-looking kind of face, h-an and brown, with a strong underjaw, and very keen grey eyes, and one could easily realise how a mere boy aa Phil would have looked beside him would be ready to pin his faith to such a man. To see him standing there so happy and so innocent-looking, staring with such a genial smilo at the family of Sandberg, whose honour he had sullied, whose summer holidays ho had darkened with tribulation, whose dear dad he had worried, gave me such a thrill of anger that my face went pink and my eyes went misty, and I forgot to steer. The natural result was that we fouled his rowing boat, which was swinging out nearly into mid stream, and Archie asked mo quite shortly what on earth I was thinking about. Mr. Silver came to the side of his houseboat with the tack-hammer in his hands and watched us. Archie apologised a trifle sulkily for scratching his varnish. “Bless your life there isn’t much to scratch,” he said gaily. I fancy the silence in the backwater was beginning to make him appreciate human companionship, for he shot a question at us before we moved on. “Do you live near here?” “Yes.” Archie rested on his oars, and we all regarded him with well simulated friendliness. “Then, perhaps—l wonder if you,” he included me in an appealing smile, “Could tell me of a place where they’d care to sell me milk. I'm off tinned.” We caught each other’s jeyes, and between us directed him to the only farm we knew where the milk was watery and the butter bad, and the farmer’s wife could be relied on in both senses to take some change out of our enemy of the backwater. He thanked us effusively, and asked us if we often rowed that way. “Often and often,” I said. “Every day,” said Archie, and Yin echoed him. Mr. Silver went a little pink. “Then I’ll be seeing you again,” he laughed awkwardly. “My name’s Silver!” “Ours is Sand-dabs,” Archie assented, winking with the eye that Mr. Silver couldn't see. He said, “Oh! I say,” in a puzzled manner, and seemed just fcr a moment to pay rather exaggerated attention to the three pairs of canvas shoes in which we terminated, but lie made an effort, threw off his pre occupation, asked some questions about fishing, and when at list we said “Good-night” to him stood watching us a little wistfully as the Tub’s broad, black figure cut the red pathway of the dying sun. After that of course, we took good care to see plenty of him, and in between our meetings occupied ourselves with perfecting our plans of revenge. For Vin it was quite an easy matter; his little flaxen bullet head appeared to have won its way into Mr. Silver’s affections at once, as it does into most people’s, and Vin would come up as he was fishing and sit beside him, talking ever so quietly for a minute or two, bo that when he did give a kick or a wriggle which upset all Mr. Silver’s bait or knocked his lunch or his fly-book into the river, it really looked quite like an accident, and .the man was so blind or so conceited that he never seemed to realise in the least little bit that Vin, with his baby face and his wide blue eyes and his pretty little lispy way of saying “I'm so solly,” was simply engaged in paying off old scores. Archie, older and less subtle, found'the way of revenge a good deal harder, but he managed once or twice, without bein’ ■seen, to hide Mr. Silver’s clothes whilst ■he was bathing, and once he got a particularly squirmy little eel and put it into one of his shoes. I can’t say that I really did my share; only one day. when we knew that Mr. Silver had gone up to London, we did all row down to the Philomela and raided her, and whilst Vin and Archie made him an apple-p'e bed and threw his tea and jam and things into the river, I sewed up the sleeves of both his bl a zer*. We found it awfully dull without him in spite of our raid, and next morning, though we took great care to pass by early so as to he* r

what he thought of it all, there he Was calmly fishing from his boat just as jolly as ever, only with a little more twinkle in his eyes, we thought, and a little more laugh in his voiee, as lie hailed us with his ridiculous — “Hello, kiddies!” It was absolutely exasperatng of him to take things so calmly, and Archie in particular felt very bad about it, andr for the next two days almost went off his feed through working his brain so hard trying to think of something to do so irritating that even Mr. Silver, callous as he was, could not bear it quietly. On the second day ho took the Tub out alone, hid behind the island, and when he had seen Mr. Silver go off to the village, rowed over to the Philomela and spoiled the Egyptians. The spoil which he brought home under his jacket and showed to me was a couple of photographs. “I guessed a man wouldn't ‘be lugging them about with him on a holiday unless they were something very special. I turned them out of their frames, so that it shouldn't be stealing, and now we'll see if he'll keep on grinning etill.” 1 looked at them a little doubtfully. One was a boy’s photo—a handsome, weak sort of young fellow, with a big collar; the other was a very old and pale, and a bit spotted, the photo of a sweet-faced woman in the kind of bonnet that they wore when it was leg-of-mutton sleeves. She had Mr. Silver’s eyes, and I knew at onee that it was his mother’s. How annoying it is of people to be good in. bits! It was irritating enough for a thief and a sneak and a coward, like Mr. Silver, to look so utterly different from his character, but to find him treasuring his mother’s photograph was even worse. I couldn’t keep froom thinking that perhaps it helped him, that he looked at it now and then and made good resolutions, that perhaps sometimes its sweet face reproached him with what he had done to Phil. Archie seemed rather huffy because I didn’t speak. “Isn’t it one to us, Barby? Haven't I downed him at last?” I shook my head. "I—l—don’t quite know. Doesn’t it seem a kind of hitting below the belt?” “Do you mean you want me to march them back?” “I wish you would.” “Then I jolly well sha’n’t! You’re

spooney on him, I believe—that’s a girl all over! You ean take them back yourself if you want it done.” My f.aee flushed. "very well, then, I’ll go now before he gets homo from the village.” “You know you wouldn’t dare to go down the backwater in the dark.” As a matter of fact I didn’t like the prospect very much, but Archie had made me angry, and I wouldn’t have admitted it for worlds. I got my old hat from the pegs in the passage, went down the garden to the steps, and undid the Tub’s painter, Archie hanging about in the background, longing to make it up. At last, when I was pushing off, ho broke the wrathful silence.

“Say, Barby, I’ll come with you if you’re afraid.” “Thanks, I’m not,” I said firmly, and took up the oars; but that wasn't quite the truth. Whether from fear or being angry with Archie or something else, my heart went hopping about inside as I rowed, and hopped worse than ever when I had to stop to bale. It was awfully silent, save for the roar of tiie weir, and when an owl suddenly screeched up in the hill where the wood is it nearly made me drop an oar. It was a cloudy night, but the open river was fairly light—at least, in comparison with the back waler, which seemed under its sheltering willows to be darker and lonelier by contrast. Row-

ing into it was like rowing into a coalcellai - with the flap of the shoot shut down, and made me feel quite afraid of crocodiles, which was rather unreasonable in Berkshire; but then, as I said to myself, one might have escaped from the Zoo. The Philomela was all in darkness, the white paint on her deck cabin showing dimly through the gloom as I brought the Tub alongside, tied her up with trembling hands, and elimbed on board. I found the cabin-door, and of course forgot the three steps inside, and fell down them. I got up, stood still, and listened for a moment, and then began to feel about in the dark, hoping to find a table where I could leave the photos in safety, or, better still, a box of matches, so that I might put them back into their frames. It was perfectly blaek in the cabin, and something was making me feel horribly frightened. I seemed to know that there were other people standing around me there in the dark waiting to grab me, and when my groping hand touched something that 1 knew wasn’t a wall or a table, but a human being, I naturally tried to scream. However, it wasn’t a success; it had far more the effect of choking with a fish-bone in one’s throat, and then somebody caught me by the arm, and a voice spoke out of the blank darkness: "Got you this time!” It was Mr. Silver's voice, and I felt a bit relieved, though I was angry with him as well. “Now don’t struggle, my dear fellow, for it isn’t any use. I’m going to strike a light and have a look at you.” He suited the action to the won!, still holding me with one hand, and the match revealed him without his eoat and tie, and with a most surprised expression when he saw who I was. “By Jove, little Miss Sanddabs!” ho ejaculated, and the match went out. When he had struck another, he lit a candle, let go my arm, and leaned up against the cabin door, and stared at me for some time in silence. “So it is you, is itT” he asked after a while. It was rather a stupid thing to ask, too, for he had known that it was I for quite two minutes —long ones. "I rather suspected my frsend .Yin or

young ArehTe. I didn't think that you Were in it. You're a very enterprising fettle girl " •I'm not a little girl," I said sharply, He shrugged liis shoulders. •'Then if you're not a little girl, in •pile of the" fact that you behave like one and look like one. too" —I thought that awfully nasty of him. It isn't my fault that my skirts won’t let down any more "I'd better get into my coat and apologise for appearing without it. ■The truth is, 1 was going to bed when 1 heard your boat coming. 1 didn't know )t was customary in this part of the rountry for young ladies to pay visits to gentlemen in ths pleasant, informal planner, or 1 would have been ready to receive you properly." His teasing me like that was a little too much for me. I got more than nngry, and that, as usual, made me cry. ••You are a ‘beast," I sobbed out at him—" a perfect beast’. 1 didn't come to see you; 1 came to bring back these.

One of the—somebody had them away to annoy you. and 1 thought it Wasn’t fair. 1 thought,' perltaps, you might want your mother’s!” I pulled them out of my blouse fron, where they had been travelling, and thrust them blindly at him, and then for some reason that I couldn’t understand I found that I hadn't the faintest intention of stopping crying. I went and sprawled upon a chair and hid my face in his tablecloth, and somehow everything came over me all ii\ a minute — Phil’s trouble and the rent, and the grocer’s bill and all dad’s pictures that won’t sell that are stacked up behind the drawingroom sofa, and 1 wanted mother just as badly then as I did when losing her was new, and 1 howled and howled. Mr. Silver looked terribly worried, and bit his lip and shuffled his feet, and then at last came over to me very gingerly. and tried to take the tablecloth

away, whether from self-preservation or kinaness I don't know, and handed mo his handkerchief instead. “ I say, don’t cry like that," he said, awkwardly. “You were a perfect little brick to bring them back, and 1 was a cad to speak to you like that. 1 beg your pardon from the bottom of my heart. If you knew how I valued that one photo you’d realise how grateful I am. You see, I shall never have another of her ’’ He broke off, and I looked at him, and felt so sorry about it that I almost forgot ho was an enemy. “There now, that’s better —you're a real little woman or you couldn't have understood. Let's shake hands and make it up." I shook before I remembered that I had a vendetta against him. and then 1 couldn’t very well unshake but I did my best. " 1 may as well tell you my real name under the circumstances,” 1 said as disagreeably as 1 could manage to. and the memory of Phil and his wrongs enabled me to stop sniffling. “It is Sandberg, not Sand-dabs, and it's one that I think you know a bit too well." At that he didn’t answer, but went, very red and looked away from me, and then he opened the cabin door and we went on deck. He rowed me home in his own ’mat, with the Tub trailing behind us, and after that night we saw even more of him than before. It wasn't only then that we looked out for him, but he seemed also to make chances of seeing us, and he was awfully good fun. He got the most ripping gramophone, and played it in the evening, and went bathing with the boys, and taught them to swim like Kaffirs, which didn’t seem to be very useful, but amused them a lot, and finally we got so used to him that we lead hard work to remember to be nasty sometimes. Still, though we “parleyed with him in the gate,” as Archie called it—though, as a matter of fact, he never came to the 'bungalow at all —we did remember in big things; for instance, when he asked us to come and have tea with him on the Philomeda three times—that is, of course, not three times straight off, but on different days—we refused every time. Vin was awfully keen on going, and said it would give a splendid chance of breaking his tea-cups, and perhaps, with luck, we might even be able to lose some spoons and spill hot tea on his legs; but Archie and I suspected that he was thinking of the cake, and had scruples about accepting Mr. Silver's bread and salt, though I don't suppose there would have been any of that unless he had given us watercress, so we refused as rudely as remarkably funny. You can have no idea, unless you've tried it, how difficult it is to be thoroughly nasty to a person who can't see that you mean to be rude and snubby and won't be angry with you, however you behave, and takes your unkindest remarks as very good jokes; and it was worse for me than for the boys, for 1 always had to remember that he had been kind to me on the Philomeda, and that we had shaken hands. One day, when we had got tired of most things, we decided to have a regatta in the pool below the weir. We went up the backwater to get there, and of course, as we expected, Mr. Silver hailed us, found out w hat we w ere after, and got into his boat and came along. He didn't play, but he hitched up under a willow tree, and watched and smoked, and clapped and suggested things for us to do. As we hadn't any money, we had decided not to present the prizes straight away, but write down the names of the winners, and buy them some other time, so we gave Mr. Silver a pencil and a bag that had had buns in it, and let him keep the score. We really had an awfully jolly afternoon, and when it got late we decided to offer a prize some time or other to the one of us who could row the Tub against stream nearest to the weir. Archie went first, and came back splashed all over. Then it was my turn, and Mr. Silver reared up from his boat cushions and said: “Is it safe for you. Miss Barbara.?” “What man lias done !" I answered, stepping in. “Woman can beat," he finished, laughing. “But do be careful; don't try to go as far up as Archie did.” “Why shouldn’t I ?” “To please me.” I laughed at him. Archie pushed me off. and I started to pull, with the Tub threatening to turn broadside on every BK»u«at, and the sculls feeling a* fuUln

as a pair of skewers. After a time I got to a place where all my struggling seemed to make no difference, and I was just thinking of turning round, -when, above the roar of the weir, I heard Mr. Silver shouting: "Barby, eome back; it isn’t safe!” He, that man, had dared to call me “ Barby,” my own home name that belonged to dad and the boys—and mother I gave a tremendous pull, and I suppose the Tub must have got to where a bit of the current sets backward, for, quite to my surprise, she shot forward as fast as an arrow, then went round and round, while the spray- from the weir pelted me like rain, and then went over. I can remember being in the water spinning about and dragged along most dreadfully and then I don’t remember anything more until I was lying on the bank with the boys staring at me with most extraordinary grimaces, and Mr. Silver all w-et, with his hair plastered down, and his eyes peeping out like a Skyeterrier, and I pointed out to them at once that f had won. and asked him to be sure and write it down on the bunbag. Mr. Silver helped Archie to make me walk straight, but he wouldn’t come in, and the boys told dad that he had jumped in and saved my life, and dear dad sat on the side of. my bed, and said that he could never be sufficiently- grateful to him. and that it was very beautiful to find that even the worst people weren’t wholly black. I said that Mr. Silver must be a bit of a zebra, and even the hoys seemed shocked at such a. zoological reference to a person who had saved one’s life. They didn’t understand, of course, how beastly everything was, how difficult it was to be good-tempered whilst half of me was as proud as proud, because he was a hero after all, and the other half, remembering that he was also a villain and a sneak, was wishing that anyone else in the world had done my bit of rescuing. Next morning I was washing the boys’ flannels, which had suffered somewhat from the: regatta, in the back kitchen, when I saw him pass the window-, and heard him tapping’ on the front door. " It will open if you push it,” I called out; ” then if you’ll ..walk straight across the sitting-room you'll find me out Here.” He frouud accordingly. “Good morning,” I said. “I can’t pnaxe hands, because I’m soapy.' If you wajit to sit down, take the eiothes-peo-s and the eat off that chair.” ' Then I tried to consider how to thank him, and there was such a long silence that he spoke first after all. "Are you sure you’re no worse after all your adventures yesterday?” “Oh, no. nothing to speak of. I think I must have bumped my head on the Tub. it feels so sore up here.” He watched by gesture with most apprehensive eyes, and went redder, and I thought lie was afraid that I should put soap' on my hair. “I hope it doesn't hurt you much,” l.e said thickly, "because I did it.” The words came out with a jerk. "You were struggling so that we should have both gene down if I hadn’t stunned you; but it was dreadful to have to strike you.” He came nearer to me and stooped down, and took my slippery and soapy hand in his brown one. “Little Barbara, wi.l you believe that it hurt me more than it hurt you; that although I did it to save you, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in all my life, because—Barbara little woman, I love you.” His voice had grown quite small and whispering, even before he stopped speaking, and I stood and looked down at his big, strong hand, and blinked hard to keep the tears out of my eyes, and some, thing that had got into my throat, and made me want to put my head down cn bis broad shoulder and cry, stopped me f' r a moment from even trying to speak. "You dare to’say that to Phil’s sister?” I “aid at last. He pretended to look puzzled. "I don't see what Phil has to do with it. dear one— if you could only care for me?” ■ ■ "He has just that to do with it,” I said, “that I should have liked being drowned much better than being saved by you.” ■ He went horribly red and guilty then, and began to stammer. "You didn't imagine that I thought—that you knew? 1 mean, I never dreamed .that my connection with Phil’s affairs Would influence you;. 1 hoped you didn’t know yet?” ‘’Well, I do, and 1 hate you and loath*

you and abominate you altogether. To behave as you have to my brother, and then pretend to care for me, is an insult. You have been kind lately, no doubt, but that won’t buy love, and, I—l wish you would go away! ” He looked at me for a moment, and he was pale enough now and very serious; then he went, and I finished the washing with the tears trickling down my nose very lamentably and tumbling off into it. That night by the last post came a letter from Phil. He had got a new berth—a bettor one. Gregerv Silver’s uncle, the one who was part of the firm, had used his influence with some friends of his, and had got it for him, "He is a perfect brick,” wrote Phil, "not. so very much older than I am, but as keen and clever as they’re made. I’ve found out that it was he who persuaded them not to prosecute me. He paid back that money to the firm out of his own pocket, and he has had to guarantee my honesty—we may as well call a spade a spade—to get me this good job. He was going to hire a steam yacht and go abroad for his holidays, but because of spending so much tin on me he has given up the idea; has got an old houseboat, and is camping out somewhere on the river. Perhaps he will come through Little Abington some time. The only nasty thing about him is that his name, like his precious nephew’s, is Gregory Silver.” I don’t think I slept much that night, and early the next morning, when the dew was on the grass and the sky all faintly blue. I stole downstairs and, took the dear old Tub and rowed up to the Philomelo. Her boat was away, so I knew he had gone bathing, and I boarded her and went into the little cuddy and lit the oil-stove and made myself be most dreadfully bold, and lay breakfast in the cabin for two. Presently the dip of his oars sounded down the backwater, and I felt awfully afraid of him for the first time in my life, and hid my face in my hands, but I think he must have heard the bacon cooking, and noticed the Tub, for he hailed the Philomela. "Who’s there?” and his volte was all funny and flat, and sounded as if he were years older than he had been yesterday. I stepped out on deck then, and wished ever so much that I hadn’t attempted to do my hair up.and felt quite sure that I must be looking ridiculous. However, when he saw me, he didn't seem to find me at all funny, but went as white as his neck’s is below the sunburn mark, and didn’t even stay to tie up his boat, but leaped on board with the painter in one hand, and took mine in the other. “Banby!” he cried, “what are you doing here?” “I’m cooking your breakfast,” I answered. "And, oh, I have been so miserable! Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t Gregory Silver?” “But I am,” he said. "But not the Gregory Silver,” I corrected him. “You’re only his unde.” And then the unde dropped the painter, and hadn’t ever the presence of mind to stand on it, and took me into his arms. The birds were singing just beautifully, and because wo were so still a kingfisher like a jewel dared to flit about among the branches overhead. The sunrays struck on the river below us. and flashed in points Of light on the willows above, and on our faces, and it w as early morning. It was all very beautiful and verv serious, and I had no idea till I felt how Gregory’s arm trembled, and heard his heart beating so near mine, that loving anyone was such a very serious thing; but I liked it all the better for that, and could have been content to stay, there and leapt and listen all day long. 1 think, only tho toffee saucepan boiled utM and tuluxtepted ua.

Rector: “Can I see the master of the house?” ..... .... Husband: "Ju»t watt a law minutes. Me u ud the old *irl'e lu the middle of seltliu* that quegtluul”