The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-12-25 00:00:00

AUTHOR OF

. .
"Pa Lady of the Holm," " Wife or His," " Ropes
o.t Sato'," "For the Glitter of Gold," 4.0.

ALL RIORTS RESERVED.)

" Second-class lower down, if you please, ladies."
The man spoke in a curicusly shaky voice for a
railway official. There was none of the brusque
sharpness common to his class, and I looked at him in
some wonder. I was starting on a journey of eighty
miles or so, from one of the great London stations,
alone.
lam always alone. Ail my life I have been an
independent sort of person; circumstances have made
mese>. I have had ties like other women • home,
husband, and friends. I have plenty of the latter
still; but all my nearest and dearest have left me
behind them in the race, and gone over the river to
wait for me on the other side. All this has nothing
to do with what I have to tell, except to show how I
came to be alone at the big station, with my travelling
bag in my hand, and a pretty girl, whom I had never
seen before, standing by my side, seeking admission
to the locked carrisge.
I suppose lam fidgetty. It is a privilege of age,
and I like to select my seat for myself, and to make
myself comfortable after my own fashion; and this
particular carriage appeared to me to be the most
appropriate for me and my bag. Perhaps I thought
so because I fancied that the man who spoke to us
did not want us to get into it. It is inherent in
human nature to dislike contradiction, and the more
he hesitated in opening the door the more I resolved
that in that cart iage, and ro other, would I make my
journey. It was empty, there were no unpleasant
• babies or chattering young men in it, and it formed
, part of a first-class car in the very middle of the
train.
"I will go in this one," I said somewhat sharply;
"open the docr, please.'
" Second class lower down, ladies," he repeated in
the same curious tone, much more comfortable."
"Is this one reserved?" I asked, looking about for
a ticket, and seeing none.
"No, Ma'am, but—"
"Then we will get in hero. Open the door."
The man looked at us with what seemed almost
despair, but he did not unlock the door.
"You will be better farther down," he said. "This
carriage is not quite clean. There was some oil spilt;
yeu can see the mark, and it is draughty. Passengers
complain of it frequently, and—"
"What is it, Simmons ? "
The guard came up as he spoke, and the bell rang.
He had wasted time in arguing the matter, and there
was none to spare.
"We want to get in here, and this man won't let
us," I said indignantly. And the new-comer unlocked
the door, and threw it open. "Step in, ladies," he
said; and then turned to the porter, whose face had
turned ashen grey in the half-light of the platform.
"Fooling again !" I heard him say, sharply. "You
bad better take care, Simmons, or you'sl get the sack."
And then he sprang into his own private and par-
ticular den, and the train moved off.
" That man must have be3n drunk, " I said to the
girl who had followed me into the carriag3, and was
sitting looking straight before her, with a weary, un-
satisfied expression on her face.
"I suppose he was," she said, with a sigh; and then
her eyes wandered out of the window on to the dreary
winter landscape, and she said no more.
I was interested in her. There was something
very modest and lady-like in her appearance and
manner. And, moreover, she looked troubled. It
was no business of mine, of course. But old women
are privileged, and I did not like to see tho tears
standing in her bright eyes, and the sad look about
the rosy mouth. I don't know why I fancied she
was a lonely child, but I did. I watched her for a
little while, taking in every detail cf her neat dress
and dainty look, and I caught myself thinking, with a
sigh, that I should have liked my own little darling—
who lay under the turf at Stratford, within sound of
the rippling Avon; and under the trees that had
shadowed Shakespeare's footsteps, if tradition may
be believed—to have grown up into just such a girl as
that.
She had soft brown eyes and a delicately-fashioned
face, no great regularity of feature perhaps, but every
line showing the ineffaceable traces of good descent
and gentle blood. Her dark hair lay on her forehead
in ripples that were plainly natural, and owed nothing
to the curling tongs or the abomination of crimping
hairpins; and her complexion was as clear as health
and water could make it. She was by no means ee-
pensively dressed, but all her clothes were good of their
kind. I must talk to her, I thought, so I plunged
haphazard into a conversation with the hackneyed
enquiry, "Are you going far?"
To Alderford.'
, she replied, naming my own
destination.
"Indeed," I said; "I am going there too. Do yoa
live there?"
"No." '•
"Going to some friends, perhaps?',
"No.
"To a situation?" I knew I might hazard that
question. She looked exactly like a girl who would
be going to a situation.
"No."
It was evidently an effort to her to speak a word,
and I wosidesed what she could be going to do there
in such a dreary season. Alderford was essentially a
summer place. My own business there this Decem-
ber day was to see my lawyer, who resided there, and
who, through an accident, could not come to London
to me. I was not going to stay there. I should be
back again to spend the holidays with some very dear
and kind friends, who will never let me remember
that I am a lone wonsan at this festive season; and
somehow I ceught myself wishing that I could gather
this solitary girl to my heart and take her with me.
She was crying now, silently, and with her face
turned away from me; but I could see the reflection
• of it as the train glided through a cutting and the
'counterfeit presentment of the carriage stretched
itself out on either side of us in the darkness. I could
- see her features as plainly as if it were a looking-
glass, and the suddealy came to the knowledge that
I could, and dried her eyes hastily.
• " You are in some trouble," I said to her gently.
"Can I help you in any way ? "
"No," she said, shaking her head. "You are very
- good, but no one can help me; Tam silly, I— "
She broke down now, and cried heartily; and I was
glad to see her do it. Whatever her grief was, it
•. would do her good to cry. Presently she wiped her
eyes again, and sat up with a smile.
"Now you can talk to me," I said. "But perhaps
lam officious. You have friends who--"
"No ! "she interrupted, passionately, "not one in
all the wide world—except him; and perhaps he is
dead. lam afraid he is. I should not have dreamed
it else."
An excitable girl evidently and superstitious too,
-judging from that observation, and I regarded her
with no small wonderment.
"You think I am crazy, I am afraid," she said,
after a pause. "I don't think I am. May I tell yea
• all about it? I have had to keep it to myself till I
sometimes think I did not dream it at all, and that I
Must be going out of my mind."
• • " Yes, tell me all about it," I said, violently curious, '
but trying not to appear so, lest I should startle her
and prevent her from speaking. "Tell me as if 1
were your mother; you have none, you say ?"
"No ; I have none. lam an orphan." She hesi-
tated is moment, and then added, "A foundling; I
never knew any friends." •
"Poor child," I said, taking her hand. I felt she
was -speaking the truth.- My friends are apt to say I
believe everything that is told me too implicitly. Per-
haps I do. But I was right this time. Every word
of Clarice Belton's story was true, as I found out
afterwards. She had been put out in the world by
the authorities of the Foundling Hospital; she had
been exceptionally clever, and had been taught music
and singing, and she was qualified to be a governess
to young children. Hitherto she had held but twa
siti-ations. In the first she had remained three
• years, giving complete satisfaction, and going well
recommended to another place when her services
• were no longer required.
• She had not been so fortunate in the second place
The lady of the house was neither so well educated
nor FO considerate as her former mistress, and her
position sva. very unpleasant. She was not treated as
one of the family in any way, and was expected to be
out of the way when her services were not required,
and, in fine, to be little more than a machine at 60
much per qua) ter.
. .
Luckily for her, she had escaped the dangers which
beset the path ot so many mencuess girls so situated,
perhaps because the right man had come across her
-• loneliness at the very moment when she might have
fallen into some wicked snare. Almost in the first
days of her residence in her 'new home she had
met with a young sailor at the house of an ac-
quaintarce, and the meeting had opened a vista of
• happiness to her which made tne burden of her daily
„.
• lue easier to bear.
_They- were soon engaged, and were to be married
when he returned from his next voyage. Like her.
he was almost alone in the world. A married
sister living in Newcastle was his only near relative.
She had never seen her; but friendly letters had
pas: ed between them, and she as to go on a visit
whenever she could get a holiday of sufficient length to
s sse make it worthwhile to take such a journey.
Mrs. Burt quite approved of Fred's choice," she
said, the tears tilling her eyes as she spoke,, "and it
to eemed as if I were finding a home. And now they
are going to write and tell her that I am not worthy
*• ' to be any good young man's wife. They•cannot under-
stand me, and they think I am running away with
se else.

',,

47!-

_

• ...

. sonieon,. J.
Mrs. Burt iirl.3 the ,name of the married sister;
-,• e ... Frederio.ilalliday that' of her lover. - ~
-...1,.4-BLIT }Km ‘,are n'Jt -running away-from him? "-I
V
. 14 4ltlar.llliiimeove e -,. - -.
r. 4 w.s.i.,- to-4-, « .- .
s . "No; oh, no •I am going to-.laiaapaliyi oreelead.
. I know it .01! El 11.011011111041,000000
. I almost doubted whether I was in my sober senses
as I listened to the rest of her story. I think I must
have.ailight dash of superstition in my composition,
for it interested me wonderfully. She had received