134 TALES OF PINK AND SILK. 



The old man's voice grew husky, and he gulped down a 

 glass of grog quickly. 



" Come, come, sir," he said, " you're getting nothing. Help 

 yourself, now do." 



Then after a vigorous blowing of the nose he began again. 



" Time went on, and, as I said before, nothing was heard of 

 my poor girl. Miss Amy married Mr. Philip Onslow, and, 

 from various rumours, she did not have a happy life of it ; 

 he had bought Newport Longdon Hall, a big hunting estab- 

 lishment, and both v/ent as well as ever. Captain Doyle had 

 been ordered to India with his regiment, where he greatty 

 distinguished himself, and died a Colonel only a few years 

 ago. 



" Then came the last letter ever written by my poor girl, 

 and the news of her death was in every morning paper the 

 same day. She said that for some time she believed herself 

 a married woman, a ceremony of some sort having taken 

 place, and then shame kept her from communicating with 

 us, her jDarents. For some time Onslow treated her kindty, 

 and spent a considerable amount of his time with her ; then 

 his manner changed, he became more and more brutal, and 

 finally cast her off just before his marriage with my master's 

 daughter. He gave her a fair sum of money, which of 

 course soon went; after that she got some sort of emplo}'- 

 ment occasionally, and just before her death was earning a 

 few pence a day by making artificial flowers ; but starvation, 

 miser}^, and disgrace made her resolve to end her wretched 

 existence. 



" I shall never forget the effect the news had on us ; poor 

 Tom Day cried like a child. I was for going off to see Sir 

 John at once and branding the man, his son-in-law, who had 

 wronged me thus, but Tom intervened. 'Leave him to- me 

 for one day, only one day,' he pleaded. ' No, Tom,' I said, 

 * it's my affair. Don't do anything in a hurry, then. Think 



