Newspaper Page Text
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New Zealand is for Americans
CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAGE
during' his half holiday ho spends mors
than though he were at work.
I find that our trade hero Is-rapidly
increasing. Wo send about one-tentii of
the total imports, amounting now to
about £’0,000.000 a year. Great Britain has
the bulk of the trade, Australia earning
next and then the United States. The
people like American goods and they are
friendly to Americans. They are proud
to call themselves our cousins and there
is no' doubt that we might double the
trade if we trie-1. I have met a number
of American drummers. They all say
that they .are doing well.
Take, for instance, a salesman I met
the othermight in the chief hotel of Dune
din. His name is George Granville. He
comes from Albany, X. Y., and has been
selling goods here and in other parts of
the extreme south of New Zealand, as
nice a little city of 10,(09 people as you will
find anywhere. The town is as well built
as any of the same size in the United
States. It has waterworks, good schools,
a public library and a beautiful park,
upon the waters of w-hich swim half a
dcren jet black swans.
I took a waik through the town, stop
ping in the business section at an agri
cultural implement store. The show room
was filled with farming machinery. 1 no
ticed that half of the supply was Ameri
can. There were several Chicago drills,
two Ohio harvesters and some Illinois
plows. I entered and talked with the pro
prietor. He told me that he found a good
sale for American reapers, and all sorts
of American farming tools, but that the
British and Canadians were trying to
for the man who can invent something to
use the iron which is there mixed with
the sand of the seashore. I am told there
are millions of tons of such sand so pure
that it is almost steel as it lies upon
the beach, but that its grains are so
small that so far it is impossible to smelt
it at a profit. There are men who are ex
perimenting upon this, and it is probable
that they will eventually succeed. At
present most of the iron consumed In
New Zealand Is brought out as ballast by
the steamers which carry away the wool,
frozen mutton and other products to Eu
rope.
Government helps farmers
As to the increase of its foreign trade
our agricultural department might take
points from New Zealand. The govern-
Some Famous Southern Beauties
CONTINUED FROM SEVENTH PAGE
This country has 15,000 gold mines
\ Australia during the past five years. Said
\he:
“Our American goods are rapidly mak
ing their way in this part of the world,
-And that although they are not at all
I lushed. I am the agent for several large
c ompanies and am doing well. AVe are
setfling printing paper by the ton. There
is good demand for farming machinery
of all kinds. You can find American bicy
cle;? everywhere and our carpenter’s tools
fori og higher prices than those of Eu-
rope.”
“Ijow about railroad materials?"
“Well, I lately took a big order for
steel' rails. The government has bought
a nuunber of cars and engines, and the
railroads are now putting in the Westing-
houso air brako.
“Tile Americans are also doing a good
business in electrical supplies," he con
tinue.!. “There is an agent of the Gen
eral (.Electric Company here now. Many
of the towns lire putting in electric light
plants, and Wellington will soon have
an electric street car line. Other drum
mers Dire selling Connecticut clocks, Illi
nois anil Massachusetts watches. There
is a good opening here for ou-r shoes and
for all sorts of yankee notions. I saw
an American typewriter in Wellington. It
IS not t3ie highest priced of our machines,
but the agent is pushing it and he now
averages a sale a day the year through."
Speaking of American shoes makes me
think of a railroad trip I took the other
day. I was riding with a New Zealand
merchant, and I asked him • what he
thought of American goods. He pulled
his right foot from under his traveling
blanket and laid it up on the seat beside
me.
“You see those shoes?” said he. "They
are American. They are the easiest shoes
I have ever had on. They have not trou
bled me a day since I bought them."
I fbelleve that 'lots of American shoes
could be sold here. We make the nob
biest shoes of the world, and the most
comfortable. American shoes will outsell
the English makes in all parts of Austra
lasia. I see them advertised as high as
$7 a pair in the shop windows. Ladies’
shoes are especially in demand, and they
bring big prices. If our shoe men should
send their agents out here to study this
market they could soon capture it.
One of the chief customers for machin
ery in New Zealand Is the government.
It owns the railroads and it will event
ually control all the street car plants and
electric light plants. It builds bridge;
and it la thinking of operating coal mines.
The result Is the government purchases
are enormous. The siato department
should Instruct our consuls to see that
American goods are properly placed be
fore the government boards. We might
supply all sorts of building materials in
the shape of iron and steel The govern
ment buys hardware, galvanized roofing,
elevators, pumps for irrigation and all
sorts of machinery and engineering. Such
purchases are so important both here and
in Australia that it would pay to put more
money info the consular service of these
countries, even at the expense of cutting
off such -places as the Falkland islands
and a score of others where we have sal
aried men who cannot possibly earn their
salt.
We should send our best business men
ns our consular representatives to this
part of the world. We should have men
who are alive to the pushing of American
trade and who will report upon the enor
mous field which is now wide open to us.
Some of our consuls, it seems to me, do
not appreciate their positions. Take for
instance a remark made to me by the
consul general to Australia, a very nice
young man, who acquired much of his
business experience as postmaster of the
thriving town of Grand Forks. N. Dak.,
from where he came to Melbourne, a city
almost as big as St. Louis, to take charge
of Uncle Sam's business interests in the
continent of Australia. I had asked him
why he did not keep the state department
posted on the openings for American
trade, and on the business developments
Which are going on everywhere. He re
plied that he reported upon all things
that the department directly asked for.
but that he did not consider it best to
show up the great trade advantages of
Australia, for fear It might call them to
the attention of the Germans and other
nations.
Such a policy is a mistaken one. The
English and Germans ore studying the
Australasian markets, and are doing
everything to push their goods into them.
They have ten confidential agents to our
one in the way of business firms, and our
consuls should not only report fully, but
they should hustle for government con
tracts.
Lowest Pacific town
I recently visited the lowest town on
this side of the world. It is the bottom
city of the Pacific, far below Cape Town,
at the bottom of Africa, and almost as
far south as Punta Arenas at the bottom
of South America. It is Invercargill, at I
crowd us out of the market.
“One of your chief competitors is Can
ada. The Canadian firms will sell on
longer time and we can get better prices
for their goods on that account. We have
to charge less when we sell for cash, and
it is much harder to sell.”
Farther up the same street I saw Amer
ican bicycles in a shop window, and farth
er on American handsaws. At present
the most of the cotton goods sold here
come from England, but the people would
take our prints. I saw some in a Welling
ton dry goods store and asked .the mer
chant where he got them. He replied that
he had given a trial order to see how
they' would go, and that they were sell
ing well. He showed me his invoice. It
was for $8,000 worth of goods, and this
he called a trial order. Most firms in the
United States would consider it a good
order. It would seem to me that the cot
ton manufacturers of Massachusetts and
the south could well afford to look up this
matter.
Within the past few months New Zea
land has been ordering mining machinery
of the United States. It has just received
some gold dredges from Chicago, and it is
probable that more will be needed.—The /
ordinary dredge here costs from $20,000 to.'
$35,000, and the demand is such that they
cannot be got fast enough.
Gold mining in New Zealand has curious
features. Most of it is alluvial. Here and
ment here watches the interests of the
farmers very closely and aids them in
many ways. This is especially so as to
the dairy industry. The government loans
money to butter makers, making each ad
vances up to $10,000 under certain condi
tions. The interest paid is 5 per cent and
the loan is to be repaid within fifteen
years in half yearly instalments. The
government has also cold storage plants,
where all butter Intended for export is
frozen, given free storage for a month and
then put on the steamer. The law pro
vides that all exported butter must pass
through these plants, and thus be subject
to government inspection.
I sefe large butter factories everywhere I
go through New Zealand, and I am told
that such factories are steadily increas
ing. The annual butter and cheese ex
ports now amount to more than two* and
one-half million dollars, and last .year
almost ten million pounds, of butter were
exported. Some of this went to Australia,
some to Great Britain and some to; the
Philippines.
I am surprised at the fine cattle of New
Zealand. The islands have registered
Shorthorns, Herefords, Polled Angus,
Ayreshires, Jerseys and cross-breeds.
There are more than 300,000 dairy cowg
and their average grade is high. I am
told that good mildli livid 50$.
gallons of milk per annum and~tli$fc.Xi£
much as 700 gallons each is gotten Iron!
The Government lends money to butler makers
there along the coast of the middle Island
are plains, the sand of wjiich contains a
gold flour. The plains are along the edges
of the sea. backed ,by mountains or bills
containing quartz or other auriferous
rocks. For ages the streams have been
carrying this flour-gold worn from these
rocks down into the water, and the tides
and storms have'thrown it back upon the
land. In the meantime the sea has been
slowly receding, leaving a chocolate col
ored sand or conglomerate mixed with
gold.
These plains have been taken up by
miners in tracts of from fifty to 100 acres.
They dig out the sand and flow it over
amalgam plates or tables covered with
matting or plush. As the water contain
ing the sand runs over the plush the gold
falls and is caught in the nap, while the
sand, being lighter, flows off. From time
to time the plush is taken off and wash
ed. In some places the sand is dredged
out by machinery, the flowing tables being
connected with the dredges.
This is by far the most profitable meth
od of mining, and there are today many
dredging companies in different parts of
New Zealand, nearly all of which are
making money. The miners claim that if
they can get one grain of gold to the
cubic yard of earth they can work at a
profit, and in some cases the results are
ten times this. One of the first dredges,
made by a' man hy the name of McQueen
In 1882, is still working. It has taken out
of the- Clutha river more than $300,000
worth of gold. Another dredge, started
by a Chinaman, paid so well that the
stock of the company rose 500 per cent,
and I am told that nineteen out of every
twenty dredges which are being worked
are making a profit. The expense of run
ning a dredge is about $250 a week or less,
each dredge employing from six to ten
selected herds. The milk Is rich, aver-
aging about a pound of butter'to every
two ar.d one-half gallons of milk, so that
the common New Zealand dairy cow an
nually produces 200 pounds of butter or 500
pounds of cheese. Estimate the butter
at 22 cents a pound and the cheese at 9
cents a pound, and you will see that each
cow brings In about $45 a year, which you
will agree Is pretty good for a cow.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.
ANSWERS A QUESTION.
men.
At present the gold product of New
Zealand is more than $5,000,000 a year,
and altogether more than $200,090,000 worth
of gold has been mined. The country has
about 15,900 gold miners, the most of
whom are engaged in placer mining or
dredging.
In the North island there is a fortune
Mrs. Borer’s Reply in Ladies’ Home
journal.
“I consider coffee as it is usually
made in the American family—strong
and from the pure bean—an injurious
drink, especially for nervous people.
“No doubt the student to whom you
refer can study better after taking a,
cuo of coffee, but - the new energy is
caused by a stimulant, the effects of
which will soon wear off, leaving him
lower in- nervous force. ri
"That is the reason he has headache
and feels so miserable when he is with
out coffee. If it is only the hot drink he
requires why not take a cup of clear
hot water or a cup of Cereal Coffee?”
Mrs. Rorer is one of the most eminent
authorities on - food in America. She
knows that Americans go on day by day-
using food and drink that sap their vi
tality instead of building it up, and it
requires argument oft repeated to wake
them up. Broken wrecks of humanity
stumbling along, unable to' carry out
their cherished plans, are all about us
and their physical weakness is nearly
always due to improper food and drink.
Coffee ,s a skilled destroyer of nervous
strength. Postum Food Coffee is a de
licious food drink made from selected
parts of cereals that yield the elements
Nature demands for rebuilding the nerve
tissue all over the human body.
If it has-ever been served "to you In a
weak, unpalatable drink, have it made
over again and use two spoons to each
cup and know that the actual boiling
continues full 15 minutes. Our word for
it. the Postum Coffee is delicious when
properly made.
gcnce of her bloom to a frigid tempera
ture of critical and unsympathetic sur
roundings. all her spontaneous grace con
gealed into acts of deliberate effrontery.
Bewildered by a chill she had never be
fore felt, too young and inexperienced in
the ways of the world beyond t hose
her own genial climate, where she had
teen a law unto herself, to realize aught
of the value of mutual concessions, «ne
struck blindly against the cold conven
tionality in which she felt herself en
caged. It was a strange and almost cruel
fate that put her in the bosom of the
Lawrence family, and occasioned as muen
suffering to her southern heart as to their
northern sensibilities.
At a ball given in Boston about the time
Mis. Ploomer was seeking to introduce
her reform in woman’s dress, and while
the subject was being widely discussed,
Sa'.lle "Ward, then the wife of Bigelow
Lawrence, appeared In a costume design
ed on the Bloomer pattern. Socially con
servative Boston was agog, and Lawrence
achieved through his wife an unenviable
notoriety. Another of her proclivities
wrought additional sensation and conse
quently further havoc In his social status.
Notwithstanding the natural beauty ot
her complexion, it was whispered even in
Louisville that she sought with more or
less artistic skill to further embellish it.
One day when the artifice was unusually
apparent, as she passed a group of labor
ing men, one exclaimed, audibly, "By
God, painted!” Nothing daunted and
without changing color, the story runs,
she said, quietly, "Yes, painted by God,”
and passed on. ,
Her mother, realizing the unhappy con
dition of her lire with Mr. Lawrence, took
her home, and within a year she applied
to the legislature of Kentucky for a di
vorce, which was granted on the ground
of incompatibility of temper. She took
her maiden name and lived for several
years in retirement.
Her second marriage was to Dr. Hunt,
of New Orleans, where she was already
well known. Tfie city, with its contingent
of wealthy Spanish and French planters,
contained many homes whose palatial
splendors exceeded those of the most pre
tentious establishments of other locali
ties. The new home In which Sallle Ward
came to preside was on a scale of mag
nificence that fully gratified her luxu
rious tastes and love of the beautiful.
The years of her residence in New Or
leans represent the most brilliant period
ot Sallie Ward’s life, when her sur
roundings, combined with her natural
gifts, gave her easily the leading position
whieh she filled so graciously and with so
much happiness to herself. Her only
child. John Hunt, of New York, was born
of this marriage.
After her husband's death she returned
to Louisville, and there for some years
devoted herself to rearing and educating
her son. She was subsequently twice
married, the first time, after nearly fif
teen years - of widowhood, to Vene P.
Armstrong, and the second time to.George
F. Downs, both of Kentucky. She retain
ed till the end of her life, which closed in
the summer of 1898, all her remarkable
powers of attraction.
Harriet Lana’s sad lift
There was a majestic Isolation about
both Harriet Lane and James Buchanan,
her uncle. Death had stripped them both
—Buchanan in his youth of the woman
who might have rounded out his life, and
Harriet Lane, cne by one, of mother,
father, sister and brothers. She eajne
Into the white house bearing the burAtn
■ orTsersonat lOSit ftrrtie recentdeathof
only sister. As she came out of it the
travail of war had already cast its shad-(
ow upon the nation. Yet socially the
white house was never so brilliant as it
was during the administration of Buchan
an. "The white house,” said Jefferson
Davis, referring later to his last days In
Washington, “under the administration of
Buchanan approached more nearly to my
Idea of a republican court than the presi
dent’s house had ever done before or since
the days of Washington.
Harriet Lane, the youngest of four chil
dren, 'became an orphan in her tentli year.
She attached herself voluntarily to her
already distinguished uncle, who was at
the time in the United States senate, hav
ing but recently returned from Russia,
where he had negotiated our first com
mercial treaty with that country. When
they were separated he wrote to her every
day at first from conscientious mottles,
of the duty he owned to her. and later
because of the pleasure he derived from
this frequent interchange of thought and
sympathy. When she was twelve years
old he sent her with her sister, Mary, to
boarding school at Charlestown, W. Va.
“Had Mary written to me that you were
a good girl and had behaved yourself en
tirely well I should have visited you dur
ing the Christmas holidays,” he said, in
the course of a letter written to her
shortly after her Initiation into boarding
school life.
It is supposed that no American woman
ever had more offers of marriage than
Harriet Lane, and ft Is evident, from a
letter written her by her uncle aoout this
time, that suitors had already begun to
present themselves. "I wish now to give
you a caution,” he wrote; “never allow
your affections to become interested,
engage yourself to any person, without
my previous advice. You ought never to
marry v any person who is not able to af
ford you a decent and immediate sup-
pot t. In my experience I have witnessed
the long years of patient misery and de
pendence which fine women have endured
from rushing precipitately into matri
monial connections without sufficient re
flection. Look ahead ana consider the
future, and act wisely in this particular.”
With the incoming of Taylor’s admin
istration Buchanan retired to Wheatland,
spending the ensuing four yeaTS there,
with occasional sallies to Washington,
and his summers, as usual at Bedford
Springs. Harriet Lane was already a belle
of far more than local repute when, in
1852, her uncle, having been appointed
minister to England, she accompanied
him thither. Through the effect she pro
duced in a strange land Buchanan prob
ably for the first time fully realized how
unusually beautiful she was. So favorable
was the impression she made upon the
queen that on state occasions she was
assigned to places usually given only to
the wives of ambassadors and ministers.
She was well known throughout England,
and on the day that Oxford university
conferred the degree of doctor of civil
laws upon her uncle and Alfred Tenny
son Its ancient walls rang with the cheers
that went up from its hundreds of stu
dents. who rose en masse to greet the en
trance of Harriet Lane.
“She was a most distinguished young
person.” said one of her countrymen re
cently. growing enthusiastic over the
recollection of the impression she created,
“whom more than one Englishman would
have given his head to marry.”
Buchanan’s administration was the last
of the old regime, a period in which there
had been that unity of purpose that had
fostered the nation, that wise forbearance
that had preserved it, ar.d withal much
illustrious oratory and brilliant debate.
But the parting of the ways had come. A
day of action was at hand. Buchanan, op
pressed with a sense of his impotency to
avert a crisis that was inevitable, retired
to Wheailand, and Lincoln, full of high
purposes and many misgivings, stepped
into the pathway of destiny. Upon the
one public life instantly relaxed its hold,
while about the other it threw its myriad
feverish tendrils, clutching him hourly
closer to itself till the long watches of
that fatal April night, during which its
imperious tenure was loosemed by death.
With Buchanan, Harriet Lane also passed
from the horizon of public life, spending
with him at Wheatland those 19. loric
four years that followed her days in the
white house. There, in January, 1866. she
was married to Henry Elliott Johnston,
of Baltimore. The ceremony was perform
ed by her uncle, the Rev. Edward Y.
Buchanan, of the Episcopal church.
Her honeymoon she passed in Cuba and
her married life in Baltimore, in who3e
social doings she took a prominent part.
At her uncle's death, in 1868, she inherited
Wheatland, where for a number of years
she passed her summers. In 1S92 she
bought a home in Washington, where she
now spends the greater part of her time.
A Celeftial Choir
CONTINUED FROM NINTH PAGE
married and lias a home of her own
and spends the afternoon of every day
visiting among her people as a Chris
tian missionary. Between times she takes
music lessons and practices with the
choir.
William Phillip Brewer, a young Amer
ican, is choir master, and is devoted and
interested in the work and stimulates the
members. The vocalists are: Soprani.
Miss Suey Lin, of the Occidental Home,
and Miss Frances Lowe, a pupil of the
Denman Grammar School; alti. Miss Bes
sie Caroline Ahtye, who is devoted tq
music, a pupil of Professor Flelssner,
organist of the First Presbyterian
church, and sufficiently advanced in her
studies to interpret with pleasure Bee
thoven, Mendelssohn and Paderewski,
and Yoke Yon, a tiny ward of the Occi
dental Mission Board, where she is cher
ished with much affection; tenori. Yet
Owyang and Chee S. Lowe, who is truly
the inspiration of the choir. He attends
the Polytechnic High School. Bassi, Ng
Poon Chew, managing editor of the Chi
nese daily paper, and Toy G. Lowe, of
the Clement Grammar School. The
Lowe boys are thoroughly Americanized,
They will enter the University of Cali
fornia when they have finished the
courses of the local high schools.
The members are all fond of music.
They read by sight and sing well.
There is a richness and sweetness in
their voices that cannot fall to both
please and surprise. One feels, while
listening to the correct harmonies flow
ing with ease and in cadences grateful
to cultivated western ears, that these
young people have swept away the ac
cumulated dust of centuries and have
blossomed into freshness and beauty and
grace under the rays of a new civiliza
tion.
Mary Dudley’s Answer
Carrington Brothers in
no very sanguine frame
of mind. He still felt the
Boer bullet in his right
leg, and his complexion,
as well as his nerves,
reminded him of the
enteric, which had
brought him near to
death’s door. Worst of
all was the news from
Nellerton.
Mary Dduley—his Ma
ry-had inherited £20,-
000 from her Uncle Har
old, and—and, if that
ICK JERRAM presented I It and foded it up. The ring was in a
himself at the office of little box - and the letter was now wrap
ped round the box. The whole was ad
dressed to Miss Mary Dudley, 2 Devon
shire road.
In the darkness he tottered out Devon
shire roadway. He gazed at the house
and the lighted window of Mary’s bed
room-gazed and gazed till he felt silly.
He lay restlessly, now wishing wildly,
now dumbly resigned to all things.
His most strenuous moments followed
the realization that he had been casual
enough to leave Mary’s packet downstairs
on the mantlepiece in the little parlor.
“Shows what I am!” he said fiercely,
as he made an attempt to get up, light
a candle and go down for it.' <_
But he found the effort quite appall-
, . j ingly severe, and gave it up.
letter of the rattle-tongue gossip. Miss j
Brayshaw, to his mother was to be be- j
lieved, Mary was on the highroad to a
title. Sir Tarver Brown was very little
other than a baronet, but the attraction
of a "ladyship” could hardly help tempt
ing even such a girl as sweet Mary Dud
ley.
The younger member of the firm re
ceived Dick with sympathy, but no en
thusiasm.
"You don’t look fit for an office desk,
Mr. Jerram—oh, I beg your pardon, Lieu
tenant Jerram, isn’t it, now?” he said
with a slight laugh.
"I was offered a commission, but I did
not feel that I could accept it, sir,” said
Dick. “I want to take up my work again -
=for"vartbm reasons."
Ernest Carrington's eyebrows rose and
subsided.
“I am very sorry, Mr. Jerram,” he said,
“but/just at present there is no vacancy.
We will, of course, give you the first
chance—the very first chance that oc
curs.”
“Do you- really mean it?” he asked
faintly.
“My dear fellow, you really are not fit'
for office work just yet. Take a holiday
after your trying labors—your noble and
—er—patriotic self-sacrifice.' I dare say,
in a few months, at the most, we can
squeeze you in somewhere, though I fear
even then we cannot offer you the same
salary you received in 1S99.”
With an effort Dick pulled himself to
gether and stood up like the disciplined
if damaged soldier he had become.
“Your words are final, sir?” he asked.
“Provisional, Jerram—only provisional.
But we can’t afford to cheer you with
hopes that may not come to fruition.
Anything we can do in the tray of rec
ommendations, it will give us the utmost
pleasure to do. Of course, you understand
that? Good heavens! it- is the least we
could do!”
Dick bowed his head. The smile on his
lips was just a little bitter.
“Quite so,” he said. “It is something
-to be grateful for that you are so willing
to do the least possible. Good morning.”
And then Dick found himself in St. Paul’s
churchyard, and conscious that the last
straw had been piled upon his head.
Mary as good as lost to him—more cer
tainly now than before, anyway—his sit
uation filled ' up, his health broken, and
nb one to whom he could honorably look"
for help in his time of trouble.
He found comfort In the recollection
tlat his mother’s own poor little income
of a hundred a year was sufficient for her
well measured requirements.
“As for me—”
He shrugged his shoulders and tottered
down Ludgate Hill. On his way he no
ticed a jeweler’s window, with watches
and chains and pins and rings of price
beneath his eyes—especially rings. And
the rings reminded him of what it hurt
him most to remember.
He looked at his left hand, with the
plain but solid gold circlet, set with a
tiny diamond, and the words, invisible
to his eye, but pressing his finger, "For
ever and forever!”
That was Mary's voucher to him for
her life-long love.
His fingernails closed on his palms
tightly, his jaws locked as if they meant
never again to part, and he drew two or
three terrible breaths of the kind that
mark crises in the life of a man.
At length he moved again. ‘‘Yes, that’s
what I’ll do,” he murmured. “Poor girl!
one can't blame her. She shall marry
him with a free conscience, at all events.”
Then once again he whispered:
“As for me—”
But he did not even shrug his shoulders
this time. His despair was too profound.
It needed no emphasis.
* + + +
At the King's Arm Inn, of Nellerton,
that evening, Dick took pen and paper
and wrote the letter to Mary which was
to accompany the returned ring. It was
short and to the point:
Dear Mary—Somehow, though I would
like to keep this, I can’t do it, and so I
bring it back to you; and you musn’t
think I mean to be nasty by making it
come to you on your birthday. I quite
understand that things are changed be
tween us. Wishing you all the happiness
life can give you, believe me, sincerely
yours always, RICHARD JERRAM.”
No drivel in that, I think,” he said,
with a pang of pride when he had read
TWO
For the second time the girl knocked
at his door.
"Your hot water, sir!” she cried, and
set her ear to listen.
She did not listen long, but hurried
downstairs, with word for the master
that the gentleman' in No. 3 was shout
ing in the queerest way.
“I think he's i!J, sir,” she said. “Ho
looked bad last night.”
The landlord made no bones about en
tering Dick’s room when he, too, had
rapped to no purpose. He gazed at Dick
for a few moments, 'and felt his blood
chill a little at D$okif furious cry: “I
tell you you are MW. M*ry, so don’t
-deny 4t!” touched BliW*-burning fore- -
head, and left him. Hr
“He's in a fever—that’s what’s the
matter with him ” he said. “You just
go for Mr. Barker, Jane, right away.”
“Poor young fellow,” said Jane eagerly,
“That I will, sir."
Moreover, being in love herself, she de
termined to kill two birds with one
stone.
"It's maybe a present for Miss Dud
ley," she said to herself. And, putting
on her‘hat, carried off Dick’s little packet
for No. 2 Devonshire road.
“Nurse!”
The darkness had passed from Dick's
brain, and, having opened his eyes and
seen things as they were, though with
an imperfect grasp of the facts, he whis
pered the monosyllable^
The quick rustle of a dress answered
him and the words:
“Yes. my dear boy!”
“You, mother?” said Dick, looking up
at the face that was the best and truest
object in life for hiip-
* She clasped his hand—a bony shape,
loosely laced with skin.
Suddenly the cloud fell upon him.
It all came back—wound, fever, the
long weeks in hospital, the voyage home
in weakness and anxiety as well as hope,
the news of Mary’s fortune and Sir Tar
ver Brown, his rebuff in St. Paul’s
church yard and his journey to Neller
ton.
He groaned in spite of himself and
turned his face to the wall.
“Now, then, dear, let me raise your
head.”
"What’s the use?” he murmured.
It was his one and ony flash of peevish
ness. The next moment he obeyed or
ders with a smile. It was a dreary
smile, yet a smile.
“How I must have worried you, moth
er!” he said quietly, as he settled after
the tonic. “I suppose this is Nellerton?”
She kissed him as mothers do kiss
their grown sons of whom they are very
proud.
“Try and sleep again, dear,” she said,
rather tremulously
But Mary Dudley and her infidelity—
her excusable infidelity—were vivid in his
mind. How could he sleep amid such
realization?
“All right,’ he said, shutting his eyes.
Then a sunny gray mist settled upon
his brain, and his surroundings were to
him as if they were not. It was not so
much sleep as translation of spirit.
‘ Oh, Mary. Mary, what shall I do
without you?” his lips cried out, even
while his mind was active in some re-
moter atmosphere.
“Nothing, dear Dick, you shall not do
without me as long as we live, for we
will be always together.” A hand was
laid on his forehead—a little satiny hand,
with love warm in all its pores. And in
stantly Dick opened his eyes.
“Mary!” he gasped.
This time Mary Dudley laid her face
by his on the pillow, smiling, and whis
pered, with her mouth close to his
mouth:
Of course, Dick; who else should it
be?"
But it was not until the evening that
she was allowed to give him in full meas
ure the only tonic that could be war
ranted able to make him himself again
in spirit and in truth. Then she did not
spare him.
“I ought to feel ashamed of you.
Dick,” she explained, "for, supposing'
if only for one second, that I could care
anything for my money apart from you’’
Sir Tarver Brown, indeed! Why, I was
just waiting for a sign from you. And
I got it—my own ring! Oh, Dick!”
> . • •