1930-12-17 — Page 15

CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT, 1930.

WELL MATCHED!

a lot of him some time. People say I am pretty, and in Paris, and here in Chester, I've been pestered to madness by young men --and older men. So perhaps he may like me. Anyhow, as far as a girl may, I'm Poor going to try to make him like me, and so Fre-relieve you of all responsibility. Thank you for every sort of kindness, and I don't need any money for the journey to town. I've got tons!-Love, D."

Contiuited prim Page 13.)

Rooms, digs, a boarding-house? little soul, it was a perfect teaser. quently through the Christmas festivities his friends accused him of being in love, because he was so thoughtful, when all the time he was merely trying to think of a way out.

She saved him again.

A few days before she was due he re- ceived a very friendly little note.

"Nicest of all guardians," she wrote, "de you think that you could let me have just cne other little month? Some very nice. People--the Hendrys (they will write to you)-want me to go to their place near Chester when I return. Phyllis Hendry has been staying here with me in Paris. She, too. was at Miss Mostyn's. I feel a pig, but perhaps you won't mind, because this really must be the end of my sincking, and hence forward. I must start and work for my living. I would travel straight on trom Puris,"

Like a drowning man he accepted the chanco, and it was he, as one Chambers, who met her when she arrived at Victoria, and took her across to Euston with her friend, Miss Hendry.

They walked up and down the platform before the train started, and she appeared in a more serious mood than before.

"It's kind of you to trouble like this," she said. "Will you tell my guardian I'm so sorry about his cold? By the way, has' he made up his mind about what is to happen to me?"

She asked this as she hung out of the carriage window.

Donald shook his head.

"He was hoping for a word from you," he said.

"I know, but it's so frightfully difficult. What can a girl do? You see, I've just realised that nice people like Miss Mostyn spend fifty or sixty years of their admir- able life in unfitting giris for any decent eccupation in life. I suppose I'll have to be a stenographer!"...

Donald groaned at the thought, and he spent several very unhappy weeks trying to picture the heavenly creature at a type writer.

Donald read it through many times, and then cursed.

I love!

Some puppy, some beardless youth she had met in Paris, probably? It was all his fault, too. He had neglected a sacred trust. he ought to have gone to her as soon as old Hislop died, and made her understand that he was almost old enough to be her father. Love-at eighteen! Forgetting himself as he had been at eighteen he thought the idea curd.

He was, thus, in a very stern mood in. deed when he met her train at Euston several days later, and helped her into a taxi.

"Where am I going?" she asked.

"You are going to stay with an old lady friend of your guardian's for a little white," he said: "a Mrs Green. You'll like her, and to-night your guardian wants you to dine with him at his flat in St. James's"

"What-ho!" said she.

Then she caught the stern glimmer in the corner of his eye.

"I say, anything wrong?" she asked, cheerily..

He regarded her.

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Then he handed her over to the tender mercies of Mrs. Green, who was in his secret, and did not give him away.

Later that evening he called in his own car, and said that he had been sent to take her to her guardian.

"He makes use of you, doesn't he?" she said, as she sat back in the car.

He gazed at her. She was in white, with white fox about her neck, and the gold in her hair touched, as it were, by the bright flame in her cheeks,

"He felt that as I know you quite well now, I had better bring you along --"

"Will you be at dinner?" she asked. "Yes,"

"Oh, I'm glad!" she whispered, and seemed to sit a little closer.

Donald pulled himself together, and made business with the lighting of a cigar- ette.

Ten minutes later they had alighted from the car at St. James's, and his man- servant let them in to a very pleasant drawing-room.

"If you'll wait here. Dolly," he said, in a low voice, "I'll fetch your guardian!"

Suddenly he felt a little hand trem- bling in his.

""Don't leave us alone!” she exclaimed,

am afraid of him without you He looked down at her. Then suddenly he stood upright, straightened his tie, cough- ec and went out of the room.

"I

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She stood waiting. Her heart was beat- ing madly. She could scarcely breathe.

The manservant threw upon the door, and said: "Mr. Lincoln !"

Donald came in.

Then stopped.

She sprang forward. The door closed on him. The blood came and went from her face.

"Where is he? But--who are you?" He came straight to her, trying to find his voice.

"Listen, child, I've been a fool, but I nicant it for the best. I've been in such a tangle about you. You see, I am Donald Chambers Lincoln. I-I am your guardian?".

"You you you angel!" she cried, and suddenly she put her face in her hands, and began to laugh so hard that she wasn't sure whether she was crying or laughing.

He asked her:

"What's this you've been writing to your guardian?" he asked in a low voice.

"Are you crying or laughing?" "When he asked me to come to the station

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know!" she. to meet you to-day, he seemed very upset cried. "I'm so happy, and so surprised, and about something. So so I thought I would so glad!" She looked at him through bril- warn you. I'm afraid you are in for it this liant eyes.. "Oh, yes, I'm glad it's you!"

He held her hand, and took her to a

At last the time for her to come to Lon- den for good and all approached, and he was compelled to face the fact. An old lady friend of his, whom he consulted, laughed at hini,evening." and told him to bring the child to her. There The wonderful blue eyes were suddenly sofa.

"Now, look here, Dolly, after dinner we were many hostels, she explained, where nice clouded. girls could live. If he got her a job, and "No, really!" she cried. "But-oh, I are going to have a long talk. And you've got kept a fatherly eye on her until she married, know, I-I told him that I was terribly in te give me the name and address of this lad he would have done his duty well. For a week or two while she looked round she could stay with her.

"You wait till you see her," said Donald. The next morning Donald received a letter which shocked him dreadfully.

"Dear Guardian,-I want to write and thank you for the generous and patient way in which you have treated me. Many guar- dians would not have let me have such a topping time, and I do realise that I shall now have to settle down and work. I don't want you to worry your head about me. If you will please look after my money and see no one cheats me about that. it is all I ask! And please how much is two hundred a year, a week? Mias Mostyn never taught me that. She was too busy about deportment! Also. I've got something to say to you, know you've been worrying about me because you are, an old bachelor, and couldn't pos- sibly put me up. Well, I am in love, and I Buppose that I ought to confess to my guar- dian that I hope very much that he will. love me too, one day.. I hope to see quite

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love with someone.'

Donald reddened. "Rot!"

"Rot, yourself!"

Donald grinned. She certainly had not lost all her schoolgirl vigour of repartec.

"Still," he murmured, isn't it rather silly to talk about being in love at your age, Dolly?"

"Why? Isn't first love the sweetest love? Isn't the truly happy person the per- 'son who loves but once, and that for the first and last time, in youth and in old age?"

He sighed.

"It sounds like a poem, but life isn't a poem, my child!"

<

"Life's what you make it," said she. Their eyes met. "Well, Dolly, all I can say is that I think it rather foolish of you, my dear, at your time of life to fall in love with some lad. I'd like to have a word with the young gentle- man in question. Making love to a child!”.

But he stopped, with the taxi, and with- out noticing how she smiled."

you fancy yourself in love with. I'm going to see him, and say what I think of hito. I'm not going to have you make a mess of your young life about some whipper- snapper ---

"Whipper-snapper!" she cried..

"Well

"He's a great friend of yours. Mr. Lincoln" she said, and her lips trembled.

"A friend of mine? I-I think well of

"Very!"

him?"

"How do you know, pray?" he demand- ed.

"You gent him to look after me, often enough, Mr. Lincoln." and in that moment. as she opened her arms to him, the child was gone for eyer, and she was a woman. "Ter you see it is Mr. Chambers with whom I have fallen so hopelessly in love, dear, dear about guardian. Has he anything to say it?"?

"Speaking for Chambers," he whispered, as his lips met hers, "I think he has a great deal to say!"

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