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Show TIsfesofL e I i Beatrice Grimshaw 1 Author of "Faiti of the Islands," 14 I 1 tin $Nft I m II HVyv I ' y f "Afy iff mother loved the man in tho uniform man of fo i7tfr tongue. She even told him to. She told my father. She would K CHAPTER I. P- CL fi ARRIAGBS-" baM ll my father, ''would. JLi A on tho whole, bo yuite as successful as they are It they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor without reference to the will of the parties." ' That's not your own," said old Ivory, throwing a piece of driftwood on the Are. The log. sea-salted, snapped into flames of vivid green ami blue. "Of course not,-' replied my father "I don't even remember who said it But it's true "It may be," said old Ivory, caustically, "but if the Lord Chancellor only managed to be Quite as successful' as existing arrangements are, I wouldn't give much for his chance of a long life." "Perhaps you and I are a trifle prejudiced," ofTered my father. The smoke roso up in a steady stream to tho dark roof of the cave There was an opening there, invisible save by day. 'We've had some cause son and grandson in my case; your father's and your well, well, for you. I saw he had bitten off what ho was going to say I knew what it was, of course. Mother and fathor hadn't got on. Mother was dead in the dark ages before I remembered. re-membered. Father and I and Lorraine, my aunt, had come to Hiliwa Dara Island with old Mr Ivory and his great-grandson, great-grandson, Luke. 1 didn't know when, and dldnl know why They owned the island among them. Nobody else lived there but a score or two of native laborers whom we had brought with us. Nobody ever came. Once or twice a year our cutter went away and came back again with goods from another Island. There were many other islands in the world, there was one very, very big that was called Australia, whence I had come. I did not know when or how. I could not remember re-member It. I rould not remember anything but what I knew tho iBland and my father and aunt, old Ivory mfl his boy, the laborers, the gardens, the great cave-house where wo lived. These were my world ringed round by the pathless sea. "Luke'c parents' marriage had its good points," tld my father, consideringly. Luke, at this, raised his head from the arrow he w shaping by the firelight. (We always used a driftwood tire by night 3ince the main hall of tho cave was never warm.) I 6aw his blue eyes glitter under their heavily carved brow arches. Boy though he was, ho had a masculine mascu-line face. In nothing at all like the small, pointed counte- , nance with tho dark eyes and delicate foiehead that mot M me every morning In my glass. 1 " "Certainly Mark was fond of tho hoy's mother," said Tfc tho-old. old man in the cornor of the cave. "She epent his fortune, and more. But we won't discuss her before ) the boy." Luke looked up aguin, and then down at his work on.e j moro. His lips were set rather tightly. I thought he had been near speaking, but he uttered no word. In the pause that followed the sea, a long way outside, talked ou the ! SjA coral bench, a putt ui wind, blown down tho entrance XTL tunnel, set -the driftwood to leapiug and blazing' Lorraine, her hanus round her knees, sat staring at tbo light. Her eyes, green as the flames; her hair, black as charred ashes, seemed to relate her In some 3trange way to those wild fires of our wild, far-off island. I could not have put the thought into words thon, I C8n now. Cnl'd aa I was, I knew her to be flame under ashes. I bad 1 wisdom that those older than I had not. It was sho who spoke next- I was sitting with my bare. wJ sunburned legs stretching out under my blue tunic, star-ing star-ing at her and wondering If she was not very, very oi j She must be very aged, I thought thirty at the least. r (Continued on Page |