The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-07-07 00:00:00

CHAPTER tr:
STRONG-MINDED

"Loon at that! Wine for the lords of creation, and
we poor inferior beings stinted even with watoZ
! '
Deborah Burrows, spinster, was the speaker: a
hard-looking woman, with a discontented air, who
might have been any age between twenty-five and
forty. She was neither reading nor working, but
sitting with pursed-up lip and half-closed eyes, see-
ing everything that was going on around.
"Yes, it's a shame, isn't it P " said a merry-look-
ing country girl, who was stitching away at a piece
of calico. Oh, I could drink a lot!"
"I dare say you could," said Deborah; "but it
is not for such people ft,4 we are. Don't you know
that we belong to the inferior sex, and that but for
the brutal laws of our country there would have
been ample place for us there—good positions in
society, instead of our being driven off, like so
many sheep in a flock, to seek for pasture in a
foreign land ?"
"My, how you talk!" said the sempstress, open-
ing her mouth, and gazing as if in wonder at the
speaker. "But I thought,' she salt, mischievously,
that we were going to Brisbane to—ahem !—find
husbands as they are so scarce at home ! "
" Pah:husbands ! " exclaimed Deborah. "Give
up your right of thinking and acting for yourself
to some thing who is not your equal in sense, let
alone your superior! Pah ! Mary Dance, I'm
ashamed of you ! "
Deborah walked over to the other side of the deck
after emitting a snort, and the sempstxess laughed
merrily as she turned to a quiet, ladylike girl, whose
wavy fair hair was gathered up very tightly in a
knot behind her shapely head; but closely as it was
bound, it could not hide its luxuriance. She was
very plainly dressed, in a close-fitting grey stuff
gown, free from every trace of ornament; but in
spite of this the girl, even in that scattered crowd
of a couple of hundred, seemed the most prominent
figure there.
"I tell you what it is, Miss Monroe," began Mary
Dance, and her needle clicked in the work.
" Hush ! don't, please," said the girl, glancing
nervously round, and she spoke in a whisper.
'" Don't what, my dear?"
'" Don't speak to me like that."
"Why, la! my dear, you look quite frightened.
What did I say?" cried Mary.
"I'm not frightened," said the girl, smiling, and
raising her large grey eyes to the speaker; "but
you will ever forget that I am only one of the
assi ste a passengers, going out to Brisbane for employ-
ment, and call me miss."
"I shall call you just what I please, my dear,"
said the other, at ibbing lar work very fiercely with
her needle. "Who's a better right to be called miss
than you? Your father was a clergyman, and
clergymen are gentlemen, and so you must be
lady."
The girrsighed.
,"Don't talk like that, Mary- I know you want
to be kind to me."
- -

_
"Kind to you F" said Mary Dance, and her
pleasant, countrified face lit up with a flash. "Yea,
I should think I did. I should be a beast if I
didn't, after the way you nursed me."
" Hush ! don't speak so loud," said
_the girl-44 the
others maY hear."

Det them," saidEMery, sharply.
"But it makes it unpleasant for me," said Grace,
earnestly. "I want to be friendly and happy with
you all; and if you call me ' miss ' it seems like
setting me at a distance, and the others sneer and
talk aside to one another."

"I should like to catch them at it before me,"
said Mary Dance, flashing up again. "They know
well einu.gh that you are a real lady, and it's nasty
mean jealousy. I'll give them a bit of my mind
about it, if I catch them at any of their nonsense.
Why, they ought to be proud to do all sorts of
things for you, because you've been 80 unhappy,
and are left an orplup. and poor."

"Like you, May," said brace Monroe, laying a
soft little hand upon that of the speaker ;and the
tears rose to the eyes of both.
"Yes," said Mary, quietly; "but then I've been
accustomed to work. After I left school, and went
Lome to the farm, I used to do anything—clean, and
wash, and sew, and make butter; so that I'm rough,
and able to work."

"And so am I," said Grace, smiling sadly; "and
very willing. You have been such a good friend to
me, Mary, that I know you will oblige me in this I
ask."

"My dear, ru do anything you ask," said Mary,
earnestly.
"Then never call me Miss Monroe again. Deborah
Burrows looked very strangely at me the other day
when you spoke to me."
"She, indeed !" said downright Mary. "Au, I
should like to slap her, with her woman's right non-
sense, and railing against the men. Says she shall
get up a society out in Australia. You see if she
don't marry the first weak little squatter she can get
hold of.'

"And Mrs. Kent looked annoyed too," said Grace.
"It is so out of all reason, Mary.
"Mm. Kent's a stiff old tyrant," said Mary,
sharply. "But there, ray dear, if you wish it, I
won't say miss any more but always Grace; and I
know I shall be horribly ashamed of myself the while.
But la! my dear, how pale and ill you look—why—
oh, my, gracious goodness, the poor girl's going to
faint! '

Grace Monroe seemed to hear her, for she smiled
faintly; but she fell back, her head striking heavily
against the warnings of the hatchway before Mary
Dance could save her, and then lay quite insensible
upon the deck.
"There, don't come crowding round like a flock of
silly sheep," cried Mary Dance, sharply. "There
that's right; keep every morsel of air away, and
suffocate the poor girl I I haven't patience with
you. Jane Geake, if you've any brains in that great
head of yours, 0 some water.' _ _

The woman' addressed extricated herself from the
little crowd and ran for the water, while Mary Dance
loosened the fainting girl's bodice, and fanned her
with her straw hat.
"What's the matter here ? " said Deborah Bur-
rows, &bowing her way to the front.
"Why, she's fainting, that's what the matter,"
said Mary Dance, sharply; "can't you see ? "
6" Fainting ! " ejaculated Deborah, in a tone of dis-
gust—" such nonsense ! "
"Yes, isn't it F " said Mary. "You couldn't faint,
I suppose, if you tried? There, do stand on one
side, Deborah Burrows; talking won't do any good
here."

"No," said Deborah, spitefully, "I suppose not.
We want the young doctor, I s'pose, same as you did
when you were so ill. Nice to have a young doctor
to attend on you, isn't it, Mary Dance? Shall I fetch
the young doctor for Miss Monroe ?"
"Oh, you—," exclaimed Mary Dance, in a tower-
ing passion; "if I don't box your ears one of these
days, I'm—ugh !"
She busied herself over the fanning process, throw-
ing all her angry energy into that, and shifting her-
self round so that she should not face the hard, smil-
ing countenance of the last speaker.
"Yes, I thought as much," said Deborah, laugh-
ing in an unpleasant, cackling way; "here comes
the young doctor—she wants him badly."
" You do, I think," retorted Mary Dance, "to
make you into a mummy."
"Here, doctor," said Deborah; "hero's another
delicate patient for you. Poor creatures, how they
must suffer !"

"Well, Mrs. Burrows," said Mr. Helston, quietly,
as he met the woman's smiling gaze with a full, calm
look, "you cannot expect all women to be made of
cast-iron."

There was a titter amongst those standing round,
and Deborah Burrows gave a little snort indicative
of contempt, and turned away.
This was not seen though by the young doctor,
who motioned the group back, and laid the girl's head
gently upon a cushion.
"Give he" air," he said. "She is only faint with
the heat. rhat's better—she is coming round."
One or two of the girls whispered to each other,
and Mary Dance looked hard at Helston as he ten-
derly moistened the girl's face with the sea water
that had been brought, until there was a quivering
about the eyelids, when his handkerchief was brought
into play, and a few moments after the dark-fringed
lids slowly unclosed, and the soft, grey eyes gazed
vacantly up into his.
Then came the brightening of recognition; a soft
flush began to rise in the cheeks, and the girl tried
hurriedly to rise.
"Lie still, my child," said the young man, gravely
noting every change in his patient's countenance.
"There, that will do. Stay with her, Mary Dance,
till I return with a draught."
And with quiet delicacy he rose from one knee,
and turned to face Laurent.

Not ill—not serious, I hope," said the latter,
anxiously.
"Oh, no," said the doctor, gravely-6 fainting
from the heat, nothing more."

• " Not—not infectio-us, I hope," said Laurent, in a
hesitating voice.
"Not in the least," said the doctor.

And he walked qiiickly to his little surgery, well
stored with necessary. .medicines. Here he mixed
something in a glass, and returned to the deck, to
find it vacant.

The next moment Mary Dance stood before him.
` "Grace Monroe has gone below, sir," she said,
quietly. "I'll take her the medicine, please."
The young doctor looked annoyed, but he handed
the glass with a few words of advice.
, " It's your turn to nurse now, Mary," he said,
smiling. "Take care of her."
"Don't you be afraid of that, sir," said Mary
Dance shortly. "I'll do that."
"I know you will, Mary," said the doctor.
And he turned away, to encounter the mocking
smile of Deborah Burrows, who stood by the com-
panion ladder, with her mouth tighter than ever,
and her eyes half closed, as she looked down from
her self-climbed eminence upon one of the inferior
sex. _

(To bo cos:timed.) .