Fifty-Two Stories For Girls Part 32

That luncheon took a long time. Basking in the smiles of his Dolly, he gradually forgot stocks, shares, backwardations, and contangoes. Then, when they came from Birch's, Dolly wanted to see the new frescoes at the Royal Exchange, and she had to be obeyed.

It was quite three o'clock when he bethought himself that, though wooing was very pleasant, he had several important letters to write, and must return to his office.

"Thank you, Jack, dear, for being so nice to me to-day," whispered Dolly, as they strolled towards the entrance of the Exchange; "and thank you especially for letting me have the church decorated. The roses will make the dear old place look sweetly pretty."

Jack stared. Had his Dolly taken leave of her senses?

"Decorations--roses!" he exclaimed, mechanically. "I don't understand."

"Ah, that's very clever of you," laughed Dolly, "pretending you know nothing about it. You wanted to surprise me."

"Upon my word I had no intention of having the church decorated. I should like to please you, of course, but----"

Well, he had already decided that the church decoration was one of the expenses he would do without.

"Come now, confess. Haven't you ordered a quant.i.ty of rosebuds? You must have forgotten. Anyway, it's all right, for while you were away from your office there came a message through the telephone asking whether you'd take 5,000 rosebuds you were talking to somebody about the other day and of course I said yes. Gracious! Jack, dear, what is the matter?"

"Rosebuds--telephone. Of course, I see what has happened," faltered the young stockbroker. "Oh, Dolly--Dolly."

"What have I done? Nothing very serious, I hope. If you don't want to have the church decorated, why, I--I--shan't mind very--very much."

"It isn't that at all," said Jack, looking very queer. "Of course you didn't know. Unluckily the message didn't mean flowers, but shares in the 'Rosebud Gold Mining Company.'"

"Oh!"

It was quite true that Jack had contemplated speculating in "Rosebud"

shares, but he had heard some disquieting rumours about the mine, and had decided not to touch them. And here he was the prospective owner of 5,000! Only two days before the quotation was 10s., with a tendency to drop. To take them up was impossible, to sell would mean a loss.

"Dolly," said he hurriedly, "let me see you into an omnibus." And, after a hasty farewell, he packed the young lady into a Kensington 'bus, and rushed to the Mining door of the Stock Exchange in Broad Street.

"What are Rosebuds?" he inquired excitedly of a well-known stockbroker.

"15_s._ 6_d._, buyers, 14_s._ 6_d._, sellers."

And they were 7_s._ 6_d._, 7_s._, when the market opened that morning.

What did it mean, and at what price had he, or rather, had Dolly, bought them?

He knew from whom the telephonic message had come. He dashed into his office and rang up the man, a member of a West End firm of brokers.

"Eight shillings," was the reply. "Congratulate you. Your profit already will pay for your honeymoon and a little more besides. Of course you'll sell. It's a market rig, and I happen to be in the know."

Sell? Of course he would. A profit of over 1,800 would recoup him for his loss of that morning, and leave him a handsome balance in the bargain.

"Dolly, dearest," he whispered that night, "the rosebuds are all right.

The old church shall be smothered in them from end to end."

And so it was, but like a prudent man he never explained that but for Dolly's unconscious a.s.sistance there might have been no roses and perhaps very little honeymoon. He was afraid Dolly might want to help him again!

A TALE OF SIMLA.

BY DR. HELEN BOURCHIER.

There was a dinner-party that night at the lieutenant-governor's, and those of the governed who had followed him from his territory of Lah.o.r.e up to Simla were bidden to the feast. In one of the pretty private sitting-rooms of the Bellevue Hotel three ladies were discussing chiffons in connection with that function.

"Elma doesn't care for dinner-parties," Mrs. Macdonald said regretfully.

Elma was her daughter, and this was her first season in Simla.

"Oh, mother, I like the parties well enough!" said Elma. "What I hate is the horrid way you have of getting to parties."

"What do you mean?" the third lady asked.

"Elma means that she doesn't like the jampans," Mrs. Macdonald explained.

"I am always frightened," said Elma in a low voice, and a little of the delicate colour she had brought out from England with her faded from her lovely face. "It seems so dreadful to go rushing down those steep, narrow lanes, on the edge of a precipice, in little rickety two-wheeled chairs that would turn over in a minute if one of the men were to stumble and fall; and then one would roll all down I don't know how many feet, down those steep precipices: some of them have no railings or protection of any kind, and in the evening the roads are quite dark under the overhanging trees. And people have fallen over them and been killed--every one knows that."

"Elma cannot speak Hindustani," the mother further explained, "and the first time she went out she called '_Jeldi, jeldi!_' to the men, and of course they ran faster and faster. I was really rather alarmed myself when they came tearing past me round a corner."

"I thought _jeldi_ meant 'slowly,'" said Elma.

"Well, at any rate you have learnt one word of the language," said Mrs.

Thompson, laughing.

"I should not mind so much if mother was with me," said the girl; "but those horrid little jampans only hold one person--and mother's jampannis always run on so fast in front, and my men have to keep up with them. I wish I wasn't going this evening."

"She has the sweetest frock you ever saw," said Mrs. Macdonald, turning to a pleasanter aspect of the subject. "I must say my sister-in-law took great pains with her outfit, and she certainly has excellent taste."

"Didn't you ever feel nervous at first," Elma asked, "when you went out in a jampan on a dark night down a very steep road?"

Mrs. Thompson laughed. "I can't say I remember it," she said. "I never fancied myself going over the _kudd_--the 'precipice' as you call it. I suppose I should have made my husband walk by the side of the jampan if I had been afraid."

Then she got up to go, and Mrs. Macdonald went out with her and stood talking for a minute in the long corridor outside her rooms.

"She is a very lovely creature," said Mrs. Thompson pleasantly. "I should think she is quite the prettiest girl in Simla this year."

"I think she is," the mother agreed; "but I am afraid she will be very difficult to manage. She is only just out of the schoolroom, you know, and girls are so unpractical. She doesn't care to talk to any one but the subalterns and boys of her own age--and it is so important she should settle this year. You know we retire next year."

"It is early days yet," said the other cheerfully.

She had come out to India herself as the bride of a very rising young civilian, and she knew nothing of the campaign of the mothers at Simla.

Elma indeed looked a lovely creature when she came out of her room an hour or two later to show herself to her mother before she stepped into the hated jampan. Her dress was a delicate creation of white lace and chiffon, with illusive shimmerings of silver in its folds that came and went with every one of her graceful movements. She was a tall and slender girl, with a beautiful long white throat, smooth and round, that took on entrancing curves of pride and gentleness, of humility and n.o.bleness. She had splendid rippling hair of a deep bronze, that had been red a few years earlier; and dark blue dreamy eyes under broad dark eyebrows; a long sweep of cool fair cheek, and a rather wide mouth with a little tender, pathetic droop at the corners.

"That frock certainly becomes you to perfection," said the mother. "I hope you will enjoy yourself; and do try not to let the boys monopolise you this evening. It is not like a dance, you know, and really, it is not good form to snub all the older men who try to talk to you."