The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-10-30 00:00:00

"There's no time to play the fool now," she said,
sharply. Be as ill as you like afterwards, but keep
up to-night. I don't want to be hard, but you musn't
break down uow. Rest will come by-and-bye, when
your worries are all over. Be thankful that neither
of the Messrs. Atherstone—father nor son—are here
to see these meetings. They might suspect something.
The good lady downstairs is more obtuse."
"I'll do my best," said Beryl. "Help me to dress,
will you? I wonder what all my unsophisticated re-
lations would say if they could witness the mysteries
of my toilette. They admire my fine colour and
golden hair very much. They don't know where I
keep them."
Colour and hair were never more brilliant than
when she went down to dinner that evening. The
ladles were alone. The rector had gone home on some
parish business which might not be delayed; and
Noel's flying visit to the north was over. But Beryl
always dressed—it was part of her creed to look well
at all times, and she had taken special pains to make
herself look lovely.
"Got up for conquest, Beryl ?" said her aunt, as she
swept in, in a pale grey satin dress, trimmed with
black lace, and a few white flowers made into a
breast-knot. You look your very best, child"
"I want to look nice to Mr. Masters, auntie," she
replied. "He used to be a kind, good man. I was a
great pet of his."
The gentleman was announced very soon after
dinner, and Beryl greeted him warmly, expressing in
a few quiet words the pleasure it was to her to see
him. _ .

"You haven't forgotten me then," he said, as he
returned the pressure of her hand. "Fifteen years is
a long time."
"I should not forget you in twice that time,"
she said. "You are not so much altered as I ex-
pected."
"I'm grown an old man, my dear, that's all. You
must let me congratulate you on your good fortune—
and on your good looks, too, my dear. Nay, never
blush. An old man like me may tell you you are
beautiful."
Beryl laughed and thanked him, and presented him
to Mrs. Atherstone and Mrs. Dalton; and the party
fell into a chat about Beryl's childhood, wherein she
was obliged to acknowledge that she had forgotten
many of the places and people he mentioned in the
course of the conversation.
"You were such a little thing," he said. "It is no
wonder you don't remember. Do you recollect being
nearly killed?"
"Don't I ?" she replied, with a laugh ; "and always
shall. See here."
She lifted the feathery mass of hair, which lay low
on her forehead to-night, and showed him the scar—
red and angry-looking.
"It has left its mark, I see," he said. "It is well it
is no worse. It nearly cost me my young actress, did
that ugly blow. Do you know, Miss Beryl, I shall
have to write me down an ass,' as Dogberry says,
when I meet an old friend of yours again."

"How so ?"
"You know Mr. Carnaby ?"

"My father's old friend 15 Yes."
"He and I had an argument about you the other
day. He talked about your blue eyes and golden
hair, and I conttadicted him; for I had a remembrance
(as I thought) of a little fat, rolypoly of a child, with
brown eyes, like a fawn's, and hair that was fair thon,
but promised to be darker in time to come. I am
afraid I was rude, for I persisted in dechring against
the evidence of his senses that he had made a mistake.
Of course I see my error now; but how I have con-
trived to be so wrong for fifteen years, I cannot
imn gine."
"Children alter very much," said Beryl, giving him
the full benefit of the eyes whose colour he had mis-
taken; "but eyes can't change. I hardly recall my
father's face, though my general memory of him IS
very distinct, but they say I am very like him."
"Like is hardly the word. You are his living
Image. I don't even see a look of your mother in
your face now, and I used to think you would grow
up like her,"
I have not been much like my mother lately."
Beryl answered. A true Atherstone,' she used to say
when she looked at me. The likeness has been lucky

for me, for I came home in a singular forlorn con-
dition, with no credentials but my face."
"And that would have been enough," said the
rector's wife. "Anyone would have known her for
the squire's grandchild that had ever seen her."
Mr. Masters spent a very pleasant two hours with
the heiress and her friends, and went his wv; and
Beryl astonished and terrified her aunt beyond
measure by dropping on the carpet when the door
closed behind him in a swoon, so prolonged and ob-
stinate that it seemed like death itself. Whatever the
strain on her nerves might have been. it had over-
come her at last, and for a time she was prostrate.
Her swoon yielded at length, and and she opened her
eyes to find only Mrs. Dalton by her sido. Mrs.
Atherstone had left the room for something, and Beryl
spoke in a hurried whisper.
"I fainted, did I not?"
4. yes!,
"Have I been hysterical? Have I said anything ?"
"Not a word. You dropped like a stone, without
sound."
"Thank heaven for that! I thought I was dying.
I hoped I was," was Miss Atherstone's somewhat
curious answer, " and "
"Don't talk nonsense," replied Mrs. Dalton.

CHAPTER XLIV.
" THERE'S NO SUCH WORD AS FAII,"
If we should fail I
We fail !. But screw your courage to the sticking plr.ce, and

we'll not faiI.—SHAKESPEARE.
SOMEHOW or other, perplexity and worry seemed to be
the result of the two visits Beryl had received; and,
to follow in their wake, the next morning Mrs. Ather-
stone received a letter from her husband, which made
her feel anxious. It was anent Graham Carson and
Lily—the former being very ill, and the latter being
very much depressed and agitated.
"I do not quite understand it," the rector wrote,
and I hope that Graham's illness is not serious, though
I fear it arises from some trouble which he cannot
speak of at present. He had a kind of fit two days
ago, and is suffering from acute head-ache and nervous
excitement. The doctors say that there is no danger,
but that the slightest excitement must be avoided,
and that even Lily had better go away for a time, and
not see him. Poor child! she is sadly distressed, and
I shall hurry her to London with me and meet you
there, if Beryl is still determined to go to town before
her marriage. She knows nothing, except that the
trouble is something about her cousin, and that Graham
asked her to put off their wedding for a little
while. I have seen his father, who knows what it is
that is troubling the son, but will not speak at present.
It is nothing that need come between the young folks.
he said, and I hope it may turn out fancy on Graham's
part; but I am very much afraid there is more than
fancy, and that there is something discreditable to be
found out in Beryl's former career. Dr. Twist has
been going over the Grange, and asking Mrs. Wick-
ham a good many questions, and declaring that he
must see Miss Atherstone Wore her marriage. Besides
this, Graham has had a letter from the actor, Allan
Temple, which seems to have upset him considerably.
Altogether, I feel very uncomfortable, and I fear that
the future does not look very bright for poor Noel.
It seems to me as though al 9 had opened our arms ton
wide to our new relation, without finding out what
she was. I hope lam not jumping to conclusions too
quickly, but all these worries seem to bring a thousand
Little things to my remembrance which have pointed
to an unpleasant past. I don't want to judge Beryl
harshly, but I fear she has much to conceal, and I
think her extreme benevolence to her Australian
friend arises from that source. Tell her as much or
little as you like of what I have said—l shall leave it
to your own good sense."
Mrs. Atherstone's good sense led her to do, perhaps,
the very best thing that could te done, and tell Beryl
nothing but the fact of Graham Carson's illness, and
Lily's approaching advent in London. It did not
seem to interest or excite her particularly. She
should be glad to see Lily, she said, and hoped Mr.
Carson would soon be better. She adhered to her de-
termination to go to town, and her aunt wrote home
to that effeet, adding a somewhat relieved postscript
to say Mrs. Dalton was not going with them, but was
remaining in Edinburgh, or rather Portobello, a Hale
while.
"She told Beryl she felt tired of travelling, and
should like a week 'or two in some quiet place," the
good lady wrote, "and really I am not sorry that
Beryl has let her stay. She is a very worthy person,
but is the least bit of an incubus, and I don't think
her influence is always for good. Beryl has a sort of
reckless, defiant air about her whenever she has one
of her long talks with her; and I can't help hoping
that this Portobello visit may lead to a final break
between them."
"Oh, I'm so glad!" was Lily's exclamation,
when she read her mother's letter ; "and so will Noel
be—he doesn't like Mrs. Dalton any more than I
do."
Both Mr. Masters and John Jarvis left the hotel,
after their visits to Beryl, in a state of extreme per-
plexity. The ex-manager was striving, as he went
along, to think how he could possibly have made the
mistake which he evidently had done, for more than
fifteen years. Think as he would, he could only re-
call a brown-eyed child, with ripply hair, fair
certainly, but totally unlike the feathery gold on this
stylish young lady's head. She remembered him, and
things of the past, but there was nothing of the hide
girl he knew so well about her, except the strange
likeness to Leonard Atherstone—a likeness which was
of feature alone, for it only recalled to him the dead
face, as he had seen it in his coffin, not the living man
whom he had known. And yet there could be no
doubt—there was the scar which he had seen a
thousand times, and once or twice "painted out"
with his own skilful hand, when it was necessary for
the little one's hair to be turned back from her face
for stage purposes.
John Jarvis was more bewildered still; he was so
shaken by the fright, whatever it was, that he had re-
ceived, that he could hardly find his way home. He
was well enoueh, but he had had a slight paralytic
stroke a year or two back, which had shaken him
severely; and as he walked, he tottered and trembled
so that more thou one passer-by turned round to look
at him.
"hand up, my man," said a passing policeman on
the North Bridge kindly enongh. " Ye've gotten a
wee drap in, ha'e to tak' ye till the station, gin
ye canna gang home, ye ken. Hech, what's this?
The puir body's nae fou' after a'."