CUT OUT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2676, 4 December 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

CUT OUT.

5 “You''ro late to-nigjht,” remarked the younger Miss Patch, as 'her sister ' dropped into a chair and began t-o draw ; cut her hatpins. “Been extra busy,” replied the elder girl. “I Why what’s the matter with mother?” Mrs. Patch, seated by the window, delivered herself of an indignant sniff, and intimated her conviction that, of all the impudent young ’ussics that ever lived that there Hannie was the very worst ! % “What have you been doing to her?” queried the elder Miss Patch, ta'king off her hat.. Miss Annie rose from her chair, and, gracefully crooking her right arm, walked niincingly across the room in a fashion intended to represent the action cf a bridegroom leading a bride away from the altar. “We’re going to have a neve pa!” said the sprightly, girl, when her progress was interfered with, by the Avail. “What” exclaimed her sister, staring at; her in blank amazement. “I say we’re going, to have a new pa,” repeated Annie, resuming her seat, and folding her arms with a truculent flourish. “She”—indicating her mother by a little jerlc of the head—“ has made all the necessary arrangements.” “Why, mother,” said the elder daughter, in a tone of horror, “you don’t really mean to say it’s true?” “True?”' cried Mrs.. "Patch, hotly. “Of bourse it’s time! Why shouldn’t it- be?” Miss Mary Patch, without replying, gazed at her parent fixedly for a while-. “Who is It,. mother?” she said at last. “Find out,” snapped Mrs. Patch. * “That’s just what- I’m trying to do,” ansAA-ered Mary, with a sarcastic smile. “Surely it- isn’t that wretched little Hinks?” - Mrs Patch, without deigning to reply, marched out of the room. The tAA’o girls stared at one another in disgust for a while, and then the younger one expressed the opinion that her sister’s shot at the gentleman’s identity had hit .the mark. “I’ve' often wondered why he- came hanging about here such a lot/* she added. “Well, so have I,” said Mary; “although, to tell you the truth, I—I —” “You wliat?” queried Annie, as she hesitated. “I thought he was coming after me,” she confessed, wtli a slight accession of color. “The nasty, blushing, stammering little wretch P ’ She broke off suddenly, walked to the AvindoAV, and gazed ont at- the darkening street with an air of deep abstraction. Then suddenly she uttered an exclamation of' annoyance, and began to let doAvn the window blind. “Daddy’s coming up the street, with his best clothes on, and a rose the size of a cauliflower in his button-hole,” she announced, with a vicious little laugh. “What, Hinks ?” said Annie, snatch, ingl a box of matches off tlio mantelpiece and lighting the gas. “Then that settles it,” she continued, as her sisted nodded in reply. “He’s the man, sure enough.” She picked up a book from the table, pushed a wicker chair as far into one

o- corner of the room as it would go,/and es began to- read with great energy, in Mary, fidgeting about, the' room, s- wiiii a mysterious little smilt/ oil bar es face, seemed to -be listening for someie ; tiling. id There came a nervous,, uncertain d knock at the front door, and Mary triph ped away to answer it. u “Mother’ll be here in a minute, Mr. u Hinks,” she said, leading, the visitor in, and smiling, upon him sweetly.. “Annie, it tell mother that Mr. Hinks has come.” it “Moth-er!” Annie yelled. “Here is Mr. Hinks!” r_ | “Fine evenin’ ?” said the gentleman, 'j plumping into a chair, and wiping his o moist, bald head with a huge pocketi> ! handkerchief. e “Beautiful,” replied. Miss. Patch, y A fleeting look of mischief flickered a in her eyes for an instant as she glanced, s iat the- student in the corner, but when - she turned to Mr. Hinks again- her e» i pression was entirely soulful, s “I was watching the sunset light die 1 out of the sky, when I saw you turn ini' to the street,” she murmured, looking shyly at the toe of her right boot. “Was you really?” said Mr. Hinks, I running, the'handkerchief, round t-lie lih- ' ing of lus hat. “And'—and thinking,” she ccntini ued, “how sweet it would be if only one could spread one’s wings and fly after it!” ’ “It would, indeed,” agreed Mr. Hinks. “I often feel like that,” proceeded Miss Patch, after giving vent to a tiny, fluttering sigh. “Mother says I’m too romantic, but I dare say she was the same when she was my age. Are you romantic, Mr. Hinks?” “I—Thirdly know,”'stammered Mr. Hinks, nervously. “Oh, it’s you, is it?” said Mrs. Patch, entering the room, with a tablecloth tucked under one arm. and a tray loaded with supper materials in her ; hands. “I thought I knoo the knock.” She was apparently on the point of saving something else, but, catching • sight of her daughter's attitude, she ? checked herself and compressed her J lips. 1 Miss Patch, with knee clasped be- - tween her interlaced fingers, was eyeing Mr. Hinks with a look of rapt ad- I miration. 1 “P’r’aps you’ll ’elp me with these ’ere supper things,” snapped her mother, after -a momentary pause. “'Now, now; lie careful!” she continued sharply, as the girl essayed to take the tray from her with one hand. “Do you want to let- the ’ole blessed lot down?” “I wasn’t thinking of what I was do- I ing,’.’ apologised Mary, with an air of detachment.' j “You very rarely are!” declared her mother, with great tartness. “Now, I then, where are you a-going with that tray?.”- j The absent-minded Mary, well on her way to the kitchen, turned back with a little laugh. “I don’t know ivliat’s wrong with me p to-night,” she remarked. “I was thinking.we’d finished supper.” I “Annie,” commanded Mrs. .natch, m “you conic ’ere and ’elp me. This sis- j ter of yourn has gone loony.” “No, I haven’t,” said Miss Patch, as she ..relinquished the tray to the younger girl. “I’m only—” “Only what?” enquired her mother, N disagreeably,, as-she came to a halt. “Oh, nothing!” she answered, sitting down and heaving another sigh. E She looked coyly at Mr. Hinks, smiled confidentially, and said' to him: “I saw you as 1 waN coming, liomo to-niglit.: 1 “Did you-?'’ replied Mr, Hinks, with T< a note of awakening tenderness in his i< VOlCe. rr

“You didn’t see me, though,” continued Miss Patch, reproach fully. Mr. ITinks, unable to deny the soft impeachment, intimated his intention of keeping a better look-out in future. “Ah-, T dare say,”' answered Miss Patch, “you’d have seen me- fast enough if I’d' been: mother L” Mr. Hinks, with a side glance at the ample proportions of Mrs Patch, checked himself on the verge of the remark that- it would he difficult to do otherwise, and substituted a statement to the effect that he must have been unusually busy nt the time. With an amount of enterprise foreign to his everyday character, he tilted his chair hack on to its hind-legs, and shyly wriggled it in the direction of his -companion. Miss Patch, with faint- traces of a smile about the corners of her mouth, executed a similar manoeuvre, and so maintained the distance between them. “I’m afraid yon’re not to be trusted,’ she remarked, with a fascinating air of defiance. “Yes I am,” replied Mr. Hinks, blushing again so uproariously that some (polished |tin canisteins on the mantelpiece caught the glow and shone redly. “All, I don’t know!” said Miss Patch, waging her head at him sceptically. “I should like to have been able to hear all that you were saying to that- Mrsor—Mrs Bowman!” “All that I said to ’er,” declared Mr. Hinks, with intense earnestness;, was—” “Supper’s ready!” announced ftJLo. Patch, from the other side of the room, in a voice which suggested that vinegar would enter largely into the composition of the meal. “Oh, bother supper,” said Miss Patch, crossing her feet, clasping her hands behind her head, and gazing wistfully at the ceiling. “I don’t want any.” “Well, don’t ’ave any, then!” said her mother. ; ' “I’m not going to,” she answered, quietly. “I shall go out for a stroll in the moonlight while you’re eating yours!” “No, you won’t,” asserted her mother, with great firmness, “You stay where you are, miss.”

Mr. Hinks, after a nervous glance at his hostess, intimated that if lack of ail escort was all that stood in the way, ho was prepared to take that role upon himself. “But what about your supper?” said Miss Patch, rising to her feet with almost unmaidenly alacrity. “I—l don’t care much about it,” replied the gentleman hastily.. “I ’ad tea rather late!” “Then if mother doesn’t mind—” began Miss Patch demurely. The younger Miss Patch looked at her. mother in mock sympathy as the front door closed with a gentle slain, and remarked that it was too bad of Mary. “What’s too bad!” replied Mrs Patch, blowing thoughtfully at' a steaming cup of cocoa., “Why going on with him like that!” said Annie, wrestling with a grin. “Is it ?” said Mrs Patch, abstractedly,, as she took a series of- noisy sips. “I suppose you won’t have any more to do with him after- this?.” continued Annie.

“’lm? What! Hinks?” said Mrs Patch, with the air of, one coming suddenly cut of a brown study. “And why not ?”

The astounded Annie uttered a gasp of. surprise, and sat staring in openmouthed silence at hcY mother . “What’s it got to do with me?” continued Mrs Patch. “It’s no business of mine, is it, if she likes to make a' fool of him?”

“And you’re still going to marry him?” faltered her daughter. “Marry ’im!” cried Mrs Patch, “Marry Hinks Why, the girl’s mad!” “B-but you said you were!” stammered Annie.

“That I never did, 57 returned Mrs Patch fiercely.. “Hew dare you sit there and tell me such an untruth!”

“I mean, we thought you were,” said Annie, helplessly. “Ho!” laughed her mother scornfully. “You did, did you? I see the little game now. Perhaps it’ll interest you, by lady, to ’ear that it’s Mr. Franks as. I'm going to marry. He’ll be around ’ere to-morrow night. If your sister’s busy with Mr Hinks, maybe you’d like to try your ’and on ’im. Don’t go too far, though, for I might box your oars.”'