The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-06-11 00:00:00

CIIAPTER IV.
I. LINE IN THE CHAIN.
Honour and shame from no condition to rise,
Act well your part, there all your honour lies.'

—Porn.
THE yourg man to whom Miss Ramsay had bowed
left the church somewhat hurriedly, and made his
way into the gardens, where he threw himself on a
seat and thought, with a far-away look in his eyes
that went hty rad the flowers and trees, and -the
sounds of bu-y life that reached him in a mingled
hum, from the Liti• bahind him. Chance.' he
muttered to lommelf, 'an unlucky chance; and yet
it was heaven to look at her one little minute. Will
she thii k I was pursuing her? Does she know? Ah,
y. s, I think she does. I have seen it in her eyes
when they have met mine. I have heard it in her
voice when—bah! lam a mad fool. Knowing what
I know, it is dishonour to think of her; worse than
wicked to dream of a future that can never be. Wake
up, Cuthbert Ingram, and be a man, and not a child
that cries for the moon.'
He took a letter from his pocket and opened it; it
was written in the most precise and feminine hand,
and looked as if it had been carefully corrected and
copied after the fashion of a schoolgirl's quarterly
epistle to her parents. It was not so ; it was only
Miss Nettley's usual style of letter writing— a style
she had endeavoured to impart to her pupils in spite
of i's rather old-fashioned appearance. She did not
deem it necessary that a lady should write a scratchy
illegiblehand, though she had had pupils whose parents
had objected to their daughters writing as qv y riled
it like tradesp, ople,' and insisted on the pointed
caligraphy that makes ladies letters, for the most part,
a thorn in the flesh to their correspondents.
Cuthbert Ingram almost knew the letter he was
going to read, by heart, and yet he went over it again
as a man_ might look at his death warrant.

ar boy, it began, and hoW-de;r-iThe.
young man
was to that elder'y schoolmistress no one knew but
herfelf. She had loved his father in her young day,
and she loved the son for his dead and gone sake, an:i
was like a mother or good spinster aunt to him.
'1 know you will take all I am going to say to you in
good part. I meant to have spoken it, but I didnot know
how to begin, and I think I can put it on pap, r
better. I know you won't be offended at anything
your old friend has to say, and you are not your
father's son if you don't act as an honourab'e man
shruld. You have fallen in love with my Pupil. I
think I can see how you will jump and exclaim wh'n
you read this; tut I know one thing— you could not.
come hre and look into my face and deny it. I have
seen it, dear. I saw it two months ago when you
were down titre, and I would have warned
you then, but I hoped it was nothing. I saw how your
eyes sought hers, and how you trembled at the tom b
of her hand and the sound of her voice. lam an old
maid, I know, and you will think p, rhaps that I ought
to know nothing about it. But I was yr.ung once,
and—but that's neither he re nor there. .t I have
to Fay to you, Cuthbert, is th;s, if there is any thing in
your heart toward Helen Ramsay, crush it me, s*amp
on it, kill itby all means yr,u can; but never bre at he
a word of it to her. She is a darling girl— right
min 'ed, pure and loving; but she is appropriated, my
dear. She has been the promised wife of anoth rn an
for a go, d many years. It is a ease of Dam( n an
Pythias bet WI en the two fathers, I believe. Anyhow,
their children are betrothed, and to come betwi en
them in any way would be to work misohief that
nothing could undo. They love each other,i and Mr.
Frank Hatherleigh is as good a young main as ever
married a charming girl. But if it were not, if Helen
were only fulfilling a duty into which no love at all
entered. it would he an urinn.”l- ,biner to do anything