The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-04-24
NIOWther.n

soups; ana as ne spoke ne proceeded to
ladle out smoky compound in which
rice and fragments of lamb were freely
mingled.
",This is all you will get for dinner.
Mr.. Lowther, and so secure what solids
come to your share; and here is such
wine as we drink here. 1t comes from
Patras, and has its fine flavor of resin.',
1 ate and drank freely, and talked
away about the place and the people,
and at last induced my host to speak Of
himself and his own habits. He fshed
and shot, he said, some years before, but
he had given up both; he also had an
Arab nag or two, but he sold them-in
fact as time wore on, he had abandoned
everything like pastime or amusement,
and now droned away life in semi
stupor, or between gin and sleep.
''Capital fellows these Albanian brutes
for letting man have his way. No one
asks how you live, or with whom. The
hogs in sly are not less troubled with a
public opinion. Except once that the
Pacha sent me an offer for Marion,
don't know that | have ever had State
communication since took up my post. y
The young girls face flushed crimson,
but she never spoke, nor had | yet heard
the sound of her voice.
"My Russian colleague continued
he, with savage laugh, e grew ha9- Art
rified at the thought of my influence
here if my daughter became Sultana,
and got some fellow to write letter in
a Paris newspaper to denounce the Brit
ish intrigue, and declare that I had be-
come a Mussulman; and the F. D. peo-
pile wrote out to me to inquire fit were
true; and replied that, as I had not
owned a hat for five-and-thirty years, l
wore a turban when 1 went out but as
that was an event that didn't happen
above twice or thrice a year, they
needn't mind it, and that if Her Majesty
made point of it, I'd not 90 out any
more.
"After that the official fellows, who
seemed to have forgotten me before,
never gave me any peace asking for re-
turns of this and reports of that How
many piastres the Pacha gave his cook
how many kids went to pilaff-what
was the least a man could live on in the
English service-and whether keeping
men poor and on the prowl was not a
sure measure to secure them of an in
quiring and inquisitive disposition.
81 take it, they must have liked my
dispatches, for not month passed that
they did not poke me up. Atlast there
came young fellow this wayne was on
walk down to Thessaly, he said, to see
Mount Olympus; he hurt his foot, and he
stayed here several weeks, and he wrote
them dispatch in my name, and said
what stunning fine thing it would be
to make all this country and the Epirus
Greek; and that we should checkmate
the Russians by erecting a rival State
and heterodox Church, and l don't
know what else. He got up his Greek
theology from Marion, here-her mother
was from Attica-and he made believe
that he knew all the dogmas."
[ stole look at Marion, but as quickly
withdrew it, for she was deadly pale, anG
looked as if about to faint.
"Marion knows" continued he, al
the fine reasons he gave for the polljjeszl
with what the Greeks call the GYundt
Idee-no Byzantian renaissance humbug
at all, but some sort of protectorate State,
with England, France and Italy, think,
as the protecting Powers; and, in fact,
he got to be so plausible and quoted such
marvellous names, that F. 0. rose to the
bait and asked to have further informa-
ton; but, by that time, he had gone
away, and we never saw more of him. -
The young girl rocked to and fro in
her chair, and fearing she would fall of
in faint, half arose to catch her. when
a look so imploringly sad as to 90 to my
heart arrested me, and | sat still, and to
avert attention from her, asked the Con-
sui some questions as to the value of the
project he had written about
81 suppose it was about as wise as
such things generally are" continued
he; sit may have had its little grain of
sense somewhere, and all its disadvan-
tages required time to develop. He was
shrewd sort of fellow that William
Hope-that was his name; he borrowed
twenty pounds of me, and he sent it
back too, and a very pretty writing desk
to Marion, and box of books; and he
said he'd come back some fine day and
see us, but he has apparently forgotten
that, and it's now two years and half
we have never heard of him. Is is not,
Marion?n
1.-Two years and eight months" said
she calmly; but her lips trembled in spite
of her.
was not sorry when our chiboucks
were introduced, and the young GIRL had
fair pretext to steal away; for saw
with what struggle she was controlling
her emotion, and what relief it would
be to her to escape notice.
The Consul was so pleased to have any
opportunity to relieve his mind that he
talked away for hours, and of his most
intimate concerns. In inveighing against
the hard lot that sentenced his wearing
out his last years of life in such a place,
he told me his whole history Marion S
mother had been dead some wears. and
he spoke of her with more feeling than
he seemed well capable of showing She
had died of that peculiar form of disease
which is found in the low-lying lands of
Greece, and the seeds of the disorder he
had already detected in Marion. "There
is little short cough, without effort, but
when | hear it, it goes to my heart" said
he, for know we'll that there turks an
enemy nothing can dislodge. You hear
it now, listenn' cried he-and he held nm
his hands to impose silence, but | heard