DOUBLE HARNESS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 5213, 1 March 1904, Page 2

DOUBLE HARNESS.

all rights reserved. By ANTHONY HOP E, Author of the “Prisoner of “Zouda,” -'Senior Dale,” “Rupert of Heutzau,” etc., etc., oto. CHAPTER XVIII. (Continued). Tho penalty w:i.s high or seemed so to a mother hut tho banishment was not ah evil. Tho boy’s absence uni tod them as his presence had never done. At home ho had been an anxiety often and sometimes a cause of distress to them. Ail that was gone now. Ho was a bond of union, and notlung else, -“id his own lovo for thorn came out. When ho was with thorn, a lad’s shamefacodness, no less than tho friction of everyday life, had half hidden, it. His heart spoko out now from across tho seas: lie wrote of homo with longing; it seemed to grow something holy to him. Ho recounted artlessly t,ie words of praise and tho marks of confidence he had won; ho was pleading » made him worthy to pay Ins Christmas visit homo. Whenever his letters came, Baymoro and Kate had a good talk together over them; tho boys open heart opened their hearts also to one another yes, and to Eva too. They paid more attention to Eva, and were quicker to understand -her growth, to see how sue reached forward to womanhood, _ and to bo ready to meet her on this new ground. She/ responded readily, with tho idea that She must do all sho could to lighten tho sorrow ami to make Charley's absence less felt. In easy going times people are apt to be reserved. The trouble and tho worry broke up the crust which had formed over their hearts. AH of them—oven tho hoy so far away—were nearer together. This softened mood and the gentler atmosphere which reigned- in the Raymores’ household, laid its effect on Jeremy -Ohiddingfoilds’s fortunes. It caused both Kate and Raymoro to look on at his proceedings with indulgence. They wore constantly asking themselves 'whether they had nob been boo strict with OKarley, and whether the calamity might not have been prevented if they had encouraged him to confide in them more and to bring his difficulties to them! .They were nervously anxious to make no such mistake in regard to Eva. They were oven in a hurry to recognise that Eva must consider herself —and therefore bo considered —a young woman. A pretty young woman , to hoot! And what did pretty young women like—and attract? Eva was not repressed; sho was encouraged along her- natura path. And it was difficult to ouoaurago Eva, without encouraging Jeremy, too—tiia.t at least was Kate Eaymoro’s opinion, notwithstanding that the had hne.a made tho repository of tho groat secret abput Dora Hutting. “A-boy and girl affair!” sho called it mice to Raymond, and mado no more reference to it. Kate was undoubtedly in a ' ■•tiraental rapod; the small .number a. *ho distant advent of tho hundreds a year from tho dyeing works did not tr uhlo her. Half unconsciously, in tho s! :e.r joy of giving Eva pleasure, in tho delight of seeing her girl epmul her wings, she throw- tho young folk together, and marked their mutual attractions : with furthering benevolence. “Wo’vo boon happy,* after all.” sho said to Ibaymore; “and I should like to see Eva. happily settled, too.” “No hurry!” ho muttered; ‘she's » child still.” V

“Oh, my dear I’.? said Kate, with a smilo of superior knowledge; fathers were always like that.” Eva exulted in tho encouragement and tho liberty, trying her wings, essaying her power, with timid tentative flights. Yet she remained very young; her innocence and guilelessness did hob leave her. Sho did not seek to shine, sho did not try to flirt. She had hot Anna Selford’s self-confidence, nor her ambition. Still, she was a young woman, and since Jeremy was very often at hand, and seemed to he a suitable subject, s6io tried her wings on him. Then Kate Baymoro would nod secretly and significantly at her husband. She also observed that Eva was beginning to show a good deni -of "character. This might bo true in a sense, since all qualities go to character, hut it was hardly true in tho usual sense. Christine Fanslmv used always to say that Eva was as good as gold—and there sho would leave the topic, without further elaboration.

Well, that was the sort of girl Jeremy liked! He sanv in himself now a man of considerable experience. Had lie not grown up side by side with Sibylla, her whims and tier tantrums? Had he not watched the development of Anna Salford’s distinction, and listened to her sharp tongue? Had ho not cause to remember Dora Hutting’s alternate cdquettishness and scruples, the one surely rather , forward (Jeremy had been revising his recollections), the other almost inhuman. Reviewing this wide fiOjd of feminine variety, Jeremy felt, competent to form a valid judgment; and ho decided that gentleness, trustfulness and fidelity, were what a man wanted. Ho said as much to Alee Turner, who-told him, with unmeasured scorn, that his ideas were out of date and sadly retrograde. “You want a slave,” said Alec, witheringly. “T want a helpmeet,” objected Jeremy.

“Not you! A helpmeet means an .equal—an intellectual equal.” Alec answered hotly. Ho was hot on a subject which did net seem necessarily to command warmth, because ho, too, had decided what he wanted. Ho had fallen into a passion Which can bo described! only as unscrupulous. He wanted to marry clever, distinguished, brilliant Anna Salford—to marry her at a registry office and take her to live on two pounds a week (or thereabouts) in two rooms up two pair of stairs in Battersea. Living there, consorting with the people who were doing the real thinking of tho ago, remote from the fatted bourgeoisie, she would ready be ablo to influence opinion and to find a scope for her remarkable gifts and abilities. He .sketched this menage in an abstract fashion, not mentioning the lady’s name, and was much annoyed when Jeremy opined that ho “wouldn’t find « girl in Loudon to do it.” “Oh, as for you, I know you’re going to become a damned plutocrat.” Aloe said, with a scornful reference to the dyeing works. (To be Continued).