The Press., 1900-03-01
sHHSHH gHSSSSe
! HIS TH|RT|ETH BIRTHDAY :,
On That Day He Decided TO Re
nounce Preferment For the
Girl He Loved.
BY Lloyd Osborne. :
sHHysSsS %SSHHSe

His thirtieth birthday! His first
youth was behind him, with all it's
heartburnings, it's failures, it's mani
fold humiliations. What had he done
these years past but drift, forlorn, pen
niless and unattached, over those shall
lows where others had stuck and pros
pered?
In the colonies he had toiled unre-
mittingly in half hundred characters,
groom, cook, boundary rider, steamer
roustabout, always sinking, always
failing. Had life nothing more for
him than an endless succession of not
empty days on the farthest beach of
Upolu, with scarcely more to eat than
the commonest Kanaka and no other
outlet for his energies than the barter
ing of salt beef for coprah and an oc-
casional nights fishing on the reef?
The noise Of an incoming boat drew
him to the door, and he looked out to
see the pastors old whaler heading
through the pass. A half grown girl
leaped into the water and FASTENED up
to the store with something fastened
in a banana leaf. 1t was letter.
which she shyly handed to the trader.
Walter Kinross looked at it with sur
prise, for it was the first he had re-
ceived for four years, and the sight of
it's English stamp and familiar hand
writing filled him with something like
awe:
Nv Dear Nephew know you're pretty old to
come back and Start life afresh here, but if you
haven't had the unmitigated folly to get married
out there and tied by the leg forever I'll help
you to make start, if you have the grit to
do it. You shan't starve if $500 year will
keep you, and if you will try and turn over a
new leaf and make man Of yourself in good ear
nest l am prepared to mark you down substan-
tally in my will
But mind, no promises; payment strictly by
results You're no longer boy, and this IS prob
ably the last chance you'll ever get OF entering
civilized life again and meeting respectable folk
incose you draft at sight on Sydney for ST. ESQ,
for you will doubtless need clothes, ETC., as well
| as your passage money, and if you decide not to
| return you accept it as present from your
| old uncle. Afectionately yours,
| ALFRED BANNocK.
The house could not contain him aud
his eager thoughts; he must needs feel
| the sky overhead and the trades
against his cheek, and take all nature
| into his puny confidence. Besides,
| Vaiala had now new charm for him,
one he had never counted on to find
Hard and lonely though his life had
been, this Samoan bay was endeared to
him by a thousand pleasant memories
and even by the recollection of his past
unhappiness. Here he had found peace
and love, freedom from taskmasters,
scenes more beautiful than any picture,
and, not least, sutficiency to eat.
A little money, and his life might
have been tolerable. even happy
enough money for a good sized boat, a
COW or two, and those six acres of the
Pascoe estate he had so often longed to
buy. How often had he talked of II
with Leata, who had been no less eager
than himself to harness their quarter
acre to the six and make them all his
little paradise. Poor Leata, whom he
had taken so lightly from her fathers
house and paid for in gunpowder anc
kegs of beef; his smiling, soft eyeC
Leata, who would have died for him
What was to become of her in this new
arrangement of things.
By this time he had worked quite
round the bay, and almost without
knowing it he found himself in front OF
| paul Enolahert'S store Englebert was