loud, or I come down there immejit!”
“I do!” came from the floor below.
“‘Ere’s the ring,” said Sophronia, promptly; “‘I, M., take thee, N.’—if
you’ll ’ave the kindness to go on, sir, we won’t detain you any longer
than we can ’elp. I’m give away, I believe; an’ I’ll take ’im, M.”
“Forasmuch as,” began the Reverend Mr. Chizzy, a few minutes later,
addressing the chore–girls, “Samuel and Sophronia have consented
together in holy wedlock—“
He stopped suddenly. Up through the opening in the floor arose the
head of a youthful negro, perhaps fourteen years of age. Mr. Chizzy
recognized him as the stable–boy, a jockey of some local fame.
“What you want me to say I done do?” he inquired.
“Mrs.—Mrs.—Bilson!” said Mr. Chizzy, with a tremulous indignation in
his voice; “did this negro infant act as your parent or friend, just
now?”
“‘E give me away,” replied the unabashed bride.
Mr. Chizzy looked at her, at Bilson, at Jim, and at the chore–girls.
Then he opened his book again and finished the ceremony.
* * * * *
The Tullingworth–Gordons were angry when they heard of the marriage.
They missed the two mainstays of their domestic system. But—well,
Bilson was growing old, and Sophronia was growing tyrannical. Perhaps
it was better as it was. And, after all, they had always wanted a
Lodge, and a Lodge–keeper, and the old ice–house stood near the gate—a
good two hundred feet from the house.
It was nearly a year before Bilson could walk around with comfort.
Indeed, eighteen months later, he did not care to do more than sit in
the sun and question Fate, while Mrs. Bilson tried to quiet a noisy
baby within the Lodge.
“‘Ere I am laid up, as I should be,” said Bilson; “an there’s an active
woman a–goin’ around with a baby, and a–nussin’ of him. If things was
as they should be, in the course of nachur, we’d ’ave exchanged jobs,
we would.”
[Illustration]
“THE RUNAWAY BROWNS,”
by H. C. Bunner, illustrations by C. J. Taylor; publishers, Keppler &
Schwarzmann. The experiences of Paul Brown and his wife, who escape
a tame, adventureless life, with a view of having “things happen to
them,” and to this end leave a pleasant home to be gone a year and a
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—_N., P. & S. Bulletin._
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literal translation, I shall be glad, indeed.”
There is no question of his success, for nine out of ten of his readers
would find De Maupassant less amusing than Bunner. The volume is very
cleverly illustrated by Taylor.
—_San Francisco Chronicle._
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