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"If he comes back!" said Sarah, only half aloud. She admitted in that moment to herself that, if he did not, somehow, it would be a blow to her.

They discussed the beauty of the sentiments and of the writing.

"He was always an honest poor feller," said Mrs. Barry, who had seen him twenty years ago, and, if she would but have admitted it, was slightly misty in her recollections. "An' a han'some boy, too-very."

"About how old, aunt?" said Sarah. "Sure, how would I know?" said the old woman. "He's full young, I know; something about the one age as yourself, I s'pose."

She would not rest until Sarah was set down with squared elbows to the table to write to James Barry in Cawnpore, and tell him all the news.

"Say 'tis yourself that's writin'," the old woman enjoined her. "He'll be pleased, for look at the interest he takes in ye already!"

"Ah, now, aunt!" exclaimed Sarah, blushing.

"Have ye a photo of yourself?" said Mrs. Barry.

Sarah admitted that she had two; one taken about two years ago, the other-a good many years since.

"Bring the two of 'em to me!" commanded her aunt.

Sarah brought them, blushing and trembling. The old woman looked from one face to the other.

"Ah, I wouldn't say the last was like you, at all," said Mrs. Barry, with decision. "Send him the other."

So Sarah laid aside the worn, tired, and pathetic portrait of the spinster of thirty-six, and folded up the picture of the happy-hearted girl of twenty-three.

"He'll never come back to see if it's like," she said to herself, as she addressed the letter. "And the men are so simple about women's dress, he'll never know those sleeves were worn fifteen years ago."

A month, perhaps, went by, and Sarah received a letter from her cousin in Cawnpore. For some reason or other, she could not bring herself at first to tell her aunt that it had come, but shut herself into her room and opened it, sitting on her bed. There fell out a photograph of a man in uniform-young, slender, gallant-looking. She drew her breath hard. It was James. By the time that she had read the letter, she was almost stupefied. Sarah rose, and, with scarlet cheeks, went slowly into the kitchen.

"Aunt," she said breathlessly, "I've heard from my Cousin James, an' he's comin' home, really; an' he says he's so much taken with my picture, he makes bold to send me his, an' to hope I will drop him a line to say if he may start payin' me his addresses."

"Well!" said Mrs. Barry. "Fallen in love with your photo, an' comin' home to wed you-'tis like a fairy tale!"

Then Sarah held out James's photograph to her aunt.

"Isn't he beautiful?" she said under her breath. "But," she faltered, "don't he look very young? Indeed, he's younger than I thought."

The old woman held the portrait close up to her eyes.

"That's him," she said. "Oh, that's him; 'tis the image of him; a lovely boy he always was." Sarah began to move out of the room. "Where are you goin'?" said her aunt.

"Goin' to write to him!" said Sarah shyly. "He's a lonesome man, he says."

"An' what'll ye say to him?" inquired the old woman, watching her curiously.

"If ye don't mind, aunt, I'd rather not say," Sarah answered.

And so a regular correspondence began between Sarah Cogan and James Barry. They wrote for three months by every mail. He sent her a silk handkerchief, and postcards of Indian

towns. She sent him a tie that she had knitted, and postcards representing Irish scenes.

At the end of the three months James wrote again to Sarah.

"Aunt, he's coming home-he'll be here in three weeks' time," said Sarah; "an' he-he says he's comin' back to marry me, an' I'm to meet him at the station, an' not to tell any one in the village, at all. "Tis to be a surprise, he says. Isn't it all very sthrange?" she murmured. "Indeed, aunt, I don't know myself at all. I don't know what's come to me!"

The old woman was overwhelmed with delight.

"What did I tell you!" she chuckled. "Didn't I say ye had time enough before you?"

Sarah went upstairs to put her hair in curl-papers against the day when James Barry should come back. For three weeks her hair was never out of papers, and she washed her face three times a day.

At last the day of James Barry's home-coming had arrived. The train which Sarah had promised him to meet was due at half-past twelve. By a quarter past she was walking up and down the platform in her Sunday dress. She was quite certain she should recognize James. "A tall, slender boy, clean-shaved, with curly hair, an' very gallant-looking," she kept repeating to herself. But she was not quite so sure that he would recognize her immediately.

"Fifteen years," she said to herself, "do make a differ to a woman, an' like enough he'll be lookin' out for those sleeves."

She took his photograph out of her pocket, and, as she gazed at it, alarm quickened in her. "He's very younglookin'-" she murmured half aloud; "no more than a boy; indeed, I'm in dread he'll find me too old for him altogether."

The signal for James's train went down. Sarah was filled with alarm. "I'm more of an age to be his mother than his wife," she said to herself. As the train came in, she felt almost faint with fear.

"A tall, slender boy, clean-shaved, an' very gallant-lookin'," she repeated, and the words seemed to sound her own doom in her ears.

When the people got out of the carriages, she leant back in the shade, keenly watching every one of them. There were several slender boys, and some she knew, and some were greeted by friends; but none of them seemed to be looking for any one. At last the station was deserted, save of one person, a well-dressed, white-haired man, who glanced about him keenly, and frowned in a kind of apprehension. The train had gone, but James had not come!

But perhaps he had missed the connection, and was coming on by the twelve-fifty-three. Sarah determined she would wait for this. She sat down on a bench, and gazed in front of her, dreaming woman's thoughts.

The bench rocked at the other end, rousing her suddenly, and she perceived that the white-haired man had bestowed himself upon it, at a little distance from her. He, too, was staring rather dismally before him. Sarah sighed deeply. He sighed at the same time, and their eyes met.

""Tis a nuisance," exclaimed the white-haired man, "to be expectin' some one, an' then to find 'em not come, isn't it?"

Her eyes flashed back understanding at him.

"That's what I'm doin'," she said. "Are you?"

"Ay," he replied; and added in an undertone: "But I suppose I may as well wait for a few minutes longermaybe she's late, an' she'd be disappointed if she didn't find me here."

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"Or worse, sir!" she exclaimed. "Think of the case of a middlin'-aged woman, that was expectin' to meet a han'some young boy she was promised to, but had never set eyes on."

The white-haired man turned and looked at her shrewdly.

"Is that your case, ma'am?" he said. The blood rushed to her face. "Well, 'tis," she admitted.

"An' t'other case," said the man calmly, "is my own."

She rose. By a sudden instinct he

rose too.

"Ye're not Sarah Cogan?" he cried. "An' ye're not James Barry?" Sarah said.

He drew a tremendous sigh of what seemed to Sarah bitter disappointment. "Ah, dear, now," he exclaimed frankly; "ye're not at all the girl I was expectin' ye to be."

Sarah Cogan turned her face away, and drew back into the shadow of the station-house.

"I know, I know," she murmured brokenly. "I am ashamed to look ye in the face."

"For three months," went on James Barry cheerfully, "I'd been picturin' you a sunny-faced merry-lookin' gerr of twenty-two, or that—”

She turned her face still further from him.

"An' ye don't know, child," he concluded, "what a load is off my mind to see ye the homely body that ye

are."

Sarah turned towards him a moment.

"Ah, don't be mockin' me!" she said.

He drew her gently into the waitingroom, and closed the door.

"Why would I mock ye?" he said softly. "Faith, an' all the time that I was comin' home, 'twas frettin' me somethin' terrible to be thinkin' of th' injustice I was doin' a beautiful young gerrl-askin' her to join her life to a gray-haired ould feller's. I was in dread to meet you, for fear ye'd get a great shock when ye saw me."

Sarah lifted her eyes, which were still full of a young girl's simplicity, to his.

"Ye were," she said wonderingly, “in dread to meet me? Oh, but ye don't know what I was goin' through when the train came in, thinkin' I'd see your face fall when ye looked at me; thinkin' ye'd turn away from me!"

"Listen to me, child," said James. He took her hands. "How will ye forgive me the trick I played on you? I was in dread when I saw your beautiful picture to send ye the portrait of a battered old soldier."

"Oh, James," she said, half-sobbing, 'twas me that began it, by sending you my portrait that was taken fifteen years ago, when I had the recent one an' all!"

He took, and held, her hands. "Does it matter so much, child?" he said. "For 'tis child ye seem to mechild, an' home, an' the ould country, an' my own hearthside. I'm a lonesome ould feller, Sarah, an' women's looks don't signify much to me, but I'm longin' for some one to take the lonesome feel out o' me heart. Why, child, what's this?"

She was sobbing.

""Tisn't-'tisn't the disappointment," he went on, "that I'm not young an' han'some?"

"No, no," she said, brushing her tears away; "but 'tis the relief, James, an' the joy that ye are not!"

The London Magazine.

Rosamund Langbridge.

SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS. SOME PASSAGES BY THE WAY.

V.

EDITOR AND PART PROPRIETOR. In January 1865 Peter began to hint proposals for an open and closer connection with the "Observer." I did not altogether like his business ways. The considerably increased revenues of the paper did not with perfect regularity run in the direction of producing my weekly 158. Peter never said "No" when I looked in for money on the Saturday afternoon, nor did he make any excuse for delay, nor promise of early payment. He used to lean one elbow on the counter of the shop and, in his low tone, with a peculiar smile on his thin lips and a far-away look in his watery blue small eyes, he changed the subject.

In addition to his temporal concerns in High Street, Peter was a local preacher. He was always dressed in black, rather rusty in color but clerical in cut. He also appeared, weekday and Sunday, in a white neckcloth. The dreamy look that overcast his countenance when I mentioned my 158., in conjunction with his reflective attitude supported by the counter, was, I fancy, reminiscent of his pulpit manner. However it be, my wages were always in arrear till I hit upon the idea of taking them out in books. To this Peter made no objection, and I daresay I got much more benefit from this method of payment than if he had awakened out of his reverie and handed me the pieces of silver. I have at this day a copy of Tennyson's poems, bound in calf (price 188.), of which I thus became possessed. Also a delightful pocket edi

tion of Shakespeare, bound in red morocco, bearing the imprimature of Bradbury, Evans & Co., Bouverie Street. I often wondered since, sitting at the "Punch" table with my old friend William Bradbury in the vice-chair. whether Peter ever paid for the book? I am afraid not.

As the result of many conversations. Peter and I came to an understanding. I would undertake the editorship of the "Observer" only on condition that I had a share in the property. It was finally arranged that I was to be editor and manager at a salary of 150l. a year; that I was to become part-proprietor, paying down a sum of 50l. and contributing to capital not less than 501. a year. I find these particulars in the shorthand diary I kept at this time. Either the entries are incomplete or the proceedings were extremely hazy. What share in the concern I was to undertake or what was the estimated value of the property does not appear. I had no one to advise me, and seem to have taken the initiative in carrying out the arrangement. I got a little handy volume of the "Law of Partnership," which I carefully studied. drew up a form of agreement embodying our proposals, which, after much shilly-shallying, Peter signed.

I

All being ready, I gave Mr. Watton notice to leave the "Chronicle," and, being free from the engagement, set to work to start the "Observer" on a new basis. It came out in enlarged form in March of this year (1865), the circulation going up in exhilarating fashion. The movement was steadily main

tained through several weeks. There is no doubt that, had I had assistance in the commercial department, the enterprise would have succeeded, and I should have lapsed into the proprietorship of a country paper. Outside the printing-room there was literally nobody but myself. I did the editing, sub-editing, reporting, leader-writing reading of proofs, and collecting of advertisements. Early in our career I not only saw the paper to press at any hour between midnight and two in the morning, but I stayed on the premises till at least sufficient sheets were pulled off the machine to meet the early local demand.

A primitive hand-press, worked by a large flywheel, sufficed for the needs of the paper in its early days. The circulation was now large enough to justify a steam press, and one was ordered. For the first week or two we had the hand-press worked by relays of men. As I found that the relays were in the habit of simultaneously withdrawing for intervals of rest, and there was no one else to look after them. I spent the night between the editorial room and the cellar where the edition was being ground out. Afterwards we had a steam press and a very smart engineer, and I was relieved from this addition to miscellaneous duties.

The first issue of what was practically the new paper came out on Saturday, April 29, 1865. I find in my diary the entry: "Up all night at work. About four o'clock this morning I asked Peter's son, who had undertaken the overseership of the printing office, how much more there was to set. "Five columns," said he. That with our staff would bring the paper out about noon. Told him to put in some blocks; got the paper out soon after eight o'clock, looking very nice and with a show of advertisements that will astonish some people."

Matters seem to have improved by

the next week. I find the entry in my journal: "Got away from the office a little before five this morning”—that is, of course, having been at work all the previous day and up all night. Before a month had sped I began to see the impossibility of accomplishing the task I had undertaken with so light a heart. Working all through the day, far into the night on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and all night on Fridays, I kept the thing going, even improved its position.

I might have staggered along under the weight of the "Observer," but I could not also carry Peter père et fils. Except in writing leaders on all possible subjects, work that came to me by rature, I had to feel my way at every step. Nine months earlier I had never been inside a printing-office, had no experience of newspaper work, either editorial or managerial. Now I was both editor and manager, and had not a soul to whom I might turn for counsel or instruction. I pegged away and would doubtless have gone on till I had physically broken down but for સે harmless little incident in Peter's career. He had reached the end of his financial tether, lengthened a little by my 501., and was, as he with one of his ineffable smiles one morning informed me, "going through the Bankruptcy Court."

In my ignorance I declared that he should not drag the "Observer" with him, my poor progeny that was, in spite of all, beginning to feel its feet. Peter's creditors chiefly lived in London, and, learning that a meeting was fixed for a particular day, I resolved to attend it. I posted off to London and found the office where the meeting was held. I do not know now where it was situated, but well remember walking into the room and finding half a dozen gentlemen sitting round a table discussing Peter and the possibility of getting at any of his pence. I think I

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