The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-09-18 00:00:00

CHAPTER XXXII.

A MOTHER'S PORTRAIT.
Oh, that those lips had language. Life has passed
With rue but roughly since I heard thee last.—CowrEu..
WHILE Graham Carson was speeding across the sea,
and gaining fresh health and strength with every
breeze, many things were happening at Atherstone
Grange. Mrs. Dalton had arrived without having
waited for Beryl's letter, about the destination of
which that young lady was rather anxious, as there
were various things in it that she did not care for all
the world to see. Nothing of any mighty consequence,
but much that would stamp her as very mercenary
and heartless, should her remarks on many things con-
nected with the Grange ever come to the knowledge
of her friends.
Mrs. Dalton pleased everyone who saw her by her
ladylike, unobtrusive demeanour, though Noel Ather-
stone, who came home now and then for a day with
his darling, declared that he did not like her, that she
was like a spider, weaving a huge web over her, and
various other uncomplimentary similes. The young
people were to be married when the heiress's year of
mourning for her mother was expired, and then they
were going to the Continent. Noel longed to show
Beryl all the old cities and places of interest of which
she had read, and their wedding would take place just
in time to leave them enough of summer weather to
make the trip delightful.
The spring wAs unusually cold and gloomy, so that
their little English tour was postponed, and Mrs. Dalton
came in time to share it with Beryl and her party.
The heiress made no ostentatious prote,tations of af-
fection for her Australian friend. She merely told
Mrs. Atherstone that Mrs. Dalton would stay there for
the present, till she had formed her plans; her grand-
daughter's death had left her very forlorn, and there
was plenty of room at the Grange. As to her going
with them on their little tour, if her aunt objected.
some other arrangement might be made.
"My dear child, I don't object," said the rector's
wife, warmly. "I like her very much. She has quite
a grand manner with her, just what your grandfather
used to say no woman ever possessed now. It was
what he admired very much.'
And had admired in this very woman, if the good
lady had only known. She knew nothing of Angela
Delphine, beyond a faint idea that there had been an
entanglement. with an actress in Pierce Atherstone's
youtn out Beryl knew. She had found a lot of letters
in the old cabinet, and had mastered the contents of
the faded and worn-out papers. In them lay the clue
to the disownment of her mother and herself, and the
banishment of her father from the house of his race.
The whole shameful story of the intrigue was told in
the memoranda she found, and she locked the whole
up in her own private desk, and made no mention of
what she had discovered. There were two or three
things in that desk of hers that she was not fond of
showing—the little ring that Allan Temple had given
her, for one, and a beautifully executed ,miniature of
her mother for another.

_
The latter was Noel's first gift to his fiance after
she had promised to be his wife, and he had brought
it to her one evening when he had obtained twenty-
four hours leave, and put into her hand with a lover's
kiss.

"I've brought you something, my darling," he said,
and she lifted her glorious eyes to his face with a
loving, witching look of tenderness which made
him repeat his caress.

Something for me F 9
"Yes.. Can you guess what it is?"

" No."
Her mind ran on all sorts of things—the little
packet suggested jewellery, and she hazarded an
npinion.
"Is it a brooch, Noel? I won't have you spend
your money in that way, sir."
"No, it isn't a brooch; it is something far more
precious than anything a jeweller can make. Look,
Beryl."
He cut the string, and disclosed a picture.
"Not mine, dear; look again."
The case was open now, and the fair face of her dead
mother was before her something younger and
fresher looking than she had been of late years, but
wonderfully like. The eyes seemed to look in the face
of the lovely girl with a wistful, yearning expression,
as Beryl had often seen them look in life, and there
was a sweet sad smile upon the lips, produced with
wonderful artistic skill.
Noel had been at considerable pains to procure a
portrait of Beryl Joyce—cheap photographs were not
extant when she was reigning star, and it was only by
hunting up Mr. Masters that he obtained the loan of a
faithful, but extremely faded, little ivory miniature.
He hadnoticed that no portrait of the actress was among
her daughter's possessions—indeed, Beryl owned she
had not one, and he sent the little picture to an artist
skilled in the reproduction of the faces of the dead,
who presently sent him home an excellent likeness of
Beryl Joyce in her best days.
Her daughter did not evincp the rapture that her
betrothed expected. To have received his mother's
picture, should he have had the misfortune to lose her,
would be to him the greatest pleasure in the world,
and he was a little hurt by his cousin's coldness.
Then she exclaimed "My mother I" and pressed the
portrait to her lips; but there was a strange look in
her face—a something of almost fear that he could not
anderstand.
"I thought you would like it so much. Berve he
, said

I told: