Told Over a Counter.

' Did you ever see any woman^Hj^^tet once 80 long and silvery as tIH B^- Marbury ?' asked Mrs. Chappell.-BxniDit ing a fine tress which she was in the act fo replacing in a box when I entered, as I frequently do now, for a rest and a chat, when my way homo lies in that direction.

• Yes !' was my unqualified answer ; ' once, and once only, and that not on the head of an old woman—if years are to bo counted by the parish register. Miss Childors was old enough and odd enough in all other respects, though she had not reached her 48th birthday when 1 saw her, and she had then a mass of hair as white as a snowdrift.'

• Dear me! that was remarkably young for gray hair,' quoth Mrs. Chappell, put ting aside the paper pox. ' She was not an Albino, surely ?' ' Oh, no; she was simply a remorseful woman.' • Then I suppose her hair had turned gray suddenly!' and Mrs. Chappoll's speaking eyes were like to notes of interrogation. I loosened my waterproof and settled myself in the chair as I answered those pyes. 'No; Miss Childers, who was of a poetic turn, told me herself, in the words of Byron :

' My hair is gray, but not with years— Nor grew it white In a single night, As men's have grown from sudden fears. ' And now, Mrs. Chappell, having raised the ghost of Mother Eve, I suppose I had better sot curiosity at rest if you are to have any sleep to-night.' She laughed, and I resumed, her as sistant edging a little nearer to listen also, it being past their busy hours. ' You must know that all the eighteen years I have given to nursing invalids have not been spent in the smoke of Lon don. So long as Oliver Marbury was above ground I shifted from place to place, lest he should, by any strange mischance, trouble me again. 1 Nine or ten years back I was located in a cathedral city, which I need not identify beyond remarking the great height of its spire and its uumerous bridges consequent on open watercourses running like rivers through the main streets. lln the Cathedral Close, stood one house so isolated in its mysterious neglect and grime that I could never pass it with out a shudder, even at midsummer, or without a wonder what crime or chancery suit could have cast such a shadow over that substantial, roomy dwelling. Vene tian blinds, which had toned down from a bright green to a dusky olive, shut out alike sunshine and curiosity, except where the laths had proved too heavy for the TOttO2 veb, and, dropping, let in accidental streaks of light upon the dust and mildew secrets behind them—such light, Mrs. Chappell, as could force its way through panes of glass which were never cleaned, unless the clouds (good scavengers that they are) compassionately washed the dirt off them. The window-frames were of that nondescriptgray which paint assumes in its very old age ; and from the seldom opened door the blistered paint had peeled in patches. The bell-wire was broken, the knocker rusty. JSo friend,no hawker, no mendicant, ever raised it to send an echo through the silent house ; even the strange tramp, who glanced up at the windows, passed on and sought no alms, supposing the place deserted •lt looked desolate enough ; nearly 20 years' disuse and dust were upon it, but prior to its abandonment to moth and mildew it had been bright as any in the Close, fitted throughout with taste and elegance ; and the magnates of the city and their families had visited with Mrs. Childers and her dark-eyed daughter, who was somehow regarded as a young lady ofgreatintellectual promise and undoubted beauty. • All this 1 gathered from hearsay. When I saw MissSChilders first—it was in a bock seller's shop—she was a spare woman, with stooping sholders, a sharp aquiline nose, thin, compressed lips ever on the work, restless gray eyes, deeply sunken under brows that overhung like cottage eaves heavy with wintry snows; and her banded hair was white as that same snow upon the cottage thatch. I saw, as she took out her purse, that her attenuated hands had been well shaped, but it occurred to me the long filbert nails might well have been trimmed more frequently. • Then her dress was most incongruous. It was of good material — or had been ; but its fashion was antiquated, its colours lost, and the garments were huddled to gether with no regard to season or suita bility. •Such a being, you may be sure, wa3 as well known as the cathedral-porch—which nhe never entered. She was cited as an example of eccentric genius, and was held up as a warning to other poetical misses who aspired to early authorship ; for she had given kooks to the world (her small world), and still solaced her solatory hours with composition and correspondence. •Yes, though she had no guests, she had correspondents —people she had known in her girlhood, or among the country fami lies where her books had found entrance first; and one of these assured me that her letters were full of kindness, good feeling, ghrewd common sense, and some critical acumen. Yet no postman's ra.p ever re sounded on her knocker ; her letters were passed under the door in lilencej and lay

there until picked up by Mrs. Barford, the old char-woman who once a week waited upon her, and did what little clean ing was required or permitted in the room where Miss Childers s.lept and sat and read and wrote, kept her food and cooked it, kept her coals for the week's fire where ashes and cinders accumulated on the hearth, to bo removed hebdomadally by the hands of the only human being she trusted or thought she couM trust. 'The same Mrs. Barford had cut her fin ger with a broken medicine bottle whilst charring in a house where I was nursing. I had plastered and bound it up for her, and the grateful old creature made so much of the slight service it was the means of introducing me to Miss Childers' indescrib able muddle of a room, and led the way to a singular confidence. •I was clearing away my breakfast things one Saturday morning when Mrs Barford burst into my homely room, out of breath, and white as my apron. ♦ With her hand on her side she gasped out 'Ob, Mrs Mearburs, come we' I! doon't ztop vor anything ! I've had a girt shock ? I vound Miss Childers lying there amost dead, ws not a bit of vire, and zhe not ablo ta lift a vinger.' 'Questioning the charwoman whilst I hurried on bonnet and shawl and locked up my room, I ascertained that, unable to gain admission otherwise, she had crept through the back kitchen window, which, unknown to her eccentric employer, she had left unfastened the week before, a sort of prevision having prompted the unwonted caution. Miss Childers had not been well then, but refused to see a doctor.

' I found the lady lying in aback room, half-dressed, across the foot of what had once been a handsome Brabian bedstead, where she had evidently thrown herself, some sudden pang or vertigo having seized her whilst dressing. A comb lay close at hand npon the bed, and her head lay cushioned, as it were, in a luxuriant mass of long, loose, white hair, glossy as spun glass, a strange background to her pinched face and hollow eyes. 1 Mrs, Barford said she must have lain there at least a couple of days, there were so few ashes under the grate and so much food remained uneaten. For my own part I was too much occupied with my peculiar patient to see more at my first hurried glance around than a fireless grate, an accumulation of cinders and refuse on the hearth, food, books, papers, clothes, crockery, furniture, sauce-pans, lumber of all sorts in indiscriminate confusion; a fine mahogany wardrobe and large hand some looking-glass adding to the general incongruity. 'I always, Mrs. Chappell, carry about with me a few 3imple appliances for cases of emergency, such as smelling-salts, plaster, bandaging-tape, lint, scissors, and a pocket-flask of brandy, though heaven knows I would bo one of the last to recommend stimulants unnecessarily.

The poor sufferer whatever her ailment, was then clearly sinking from exhaustion. —Raising her head, with a teaspoon I poured a little brandy &nd water down her throat, while Mrs. JBarford lit a fire, and soon I had the satisfaction to see her face assume a more natural tone, and the ashen pallor disappear, though we had undressed and put her into bed comfort ably some time before she was strong enough to speak to us or to Doctor Over ton, for whom I had sent without waiting for her sanction.

' Anger at his appearance seemed to rouse her more than our restoratives.

' I'll have—no doctor—l'll—l'll —die — first,' she contrived to gasp out.

' But the Dr, who confirmed my own view of her case, snid quietly, ' My good friend, don't exhaust yourself; I do not mean to prescribe any medicine worse than beef tea —at present,' he added in an undertone, to mo. ' We must restoro vitality before we seek evidence of disease ;' and, observing that his presence irritated his patient, he withdrew, first giving me some very plain directions for dietary, etc. ' Mrs. Barford appeared to know where everything was kept, even to Miss Childer's purse, and I soon had a cup of beef-tea rcadv.

'Wo then endeavored to evolve order from chaos, and purify the impure with as little commotion as possible ; Miss Childers looking on meanwhile in passive feebleness, unable to remonstrate had she been so inclined.

• Good "nursing and kitchen physic restored Miss Childer's temporary strength ; but then there was disease, induced by her mode of life, to combat; and Dr. Overton was not sanguine.

' You see, she could not be induced to take medicine. She said, ' Why should I take pills and potions to prolong life ? What is life to me but one long agony of disappointment and remorse ? I do not seek to live.'

' I was struck with the bitternes3 and anguish of this protest against recovery, and thought that I saw therein a clue to her eccentricities. Nevertheless I argued with her;

' Our 1 ives are not our own, Miss Chil ders. We have all our appointed work to do, and if we do it ill the consequences are upon our own heads. Thank God, if you have wronged any, that time is given you not only for remorse but penitence and reparation.'

' Reparation !' she murmured, her restless, sunken eyes settling on my face and kindling like stars. ' What can we do now to atone ? Reparation is impossi ble.'

[ Still, I contended, 'it is as much suicide to wilfully refuse proper remedies

for disease as though you flung your body into a pool. And you have no right to ding away the life which God has given, •10 long as you may make it useful to others. Your pen ' ' Of all the miserable wails that ever Wroke from human lips, that which in terrupted me was the most excruciating. It seemed wrung from the very depths of her soul.

•My pen ! I have forsworn it! It was that which marred mv own life and the lives of others ; filled my soul with bitter ness, blanched these abundant tresses, once black as midnight—or my own heart;' and then it was she quoted the ' Prisoner of Chillon.' 'My pen! It has been a curse to me instead of a blessing !'

• She had raised herself to give utterance to her emotion, now she sank back on her pillow exhausted and in tears. • I think those tears were a relief. She wept herself to sleep, and awoke three hours after, much refreshed. Strange to say, she asked for the bitterly rejected medicine, and never refused it again.

•By this time the disease had got too far ahead for drugs to overtake. I was anxious that some relative or friend should be summoned, but she would not hear of it. Barford and I were all she would permit to wait on her. One day when the old charwoman was out, and she sat up in bed, apparently stronger than ordinary, she Whispered to me, 'Mrs. Marbury, come close to the bedside, and promise faithfully never to reveal what I am about to tell you so long as there is breath in my body. Bat I feel I cannot die unless I disburden my mind.' ' I gave the required promise, and a renovating draught at the same time. ' I was a beauty once,' she began, with eyes so dark a gray that they might have passed for black, and a head of hair that was never surpassed. You see what it is now!'

' I nodded, and Miss Childers went on

' I was full of poetry and sentiment, revelling in Byron and Moore, and lan guishing with L. E. L., when I met at the house of Dean the finest face and form that ever clothed a human soul, and from that spring-tide morning Aubrey Wilton was my fate. 'Ah! Mrs. Marbury, 1 think I see him now as he rose from the sofa to be introduced to ' Miss Childers, the young poetess,' and I almost feel again the blushes rise to my cheeks as I blundered forth a disclaimer of the com pliments paid to me. I was not quite eighteen, and bore my poetic honors some what bashfully. But I think I was most overpowered by the unexpected presen tation to the beau-ideal of my imaginative dreamg. There was not an effeminate line in his face or figure, yet Aubrey Wilton was superlatively beautiful, with a akin white"f than my own, black eyes which pierced me through, and clustering curls as jetty and lustrous as my own.' 1 There was a long pause before she re sumed.

1 My mother was alive then, and we not only visited but entertained in our turn ; and wherever we went, Mr. Wilton was sure to be there also. He had been abroad ; had come back to take possession of the family estate on the death of his eldest brother. I ara afraid this property was his great charm in mother's eyes. For myself, I absolutely worshipped the rain and valued the gold as dross. Whether to draw me out, or to make my self agreeable, Aubrey Wilton always led conversation with me into the enchanted realms of poesy, and—luckless witling that I was —I followed, little dooming it was but the avenue to love. I awoke one day to the knowledge in all its strength and bitterness.'

1 Recollection scorned to overpower her ; the white head went down on the pillow. Mrs. Barford c-ime back ; and was followed by the doctor, who forbade excitement, nnd a week or so elapsed before I heard the remainder of Miss Childer's sad con fession, which had many breaks and pauses'

•Mrs. Marbury,' she began, 'in my dreams last night I saw my mother, and she beckoned me. I must say quickly what I have to reveal—but, oh ! think not more harshly of me than you can help.'

11 said I woke from my dream —the shock was a rude one. Aubrey Wilton asked me to write some verses in an album he was about to present to his beturothed. I was too much stunned either to faint or scream. I think he took my silence for poetic cogitation. Heaven help me ! I was feeling os if the universe had collapsed. Pride lent me its mask, and I rallied sufficiently to banter him and so ascertained who was the farored fair one. As we were such ' good friends' —so he said —ho showed me her miniature. It whs printed on ivory, and wa3 the counter feit presentment of my very antithesis—a stranger to me, — a pale-faced, wishy-washy sort of girl, one of those beings who are amiable because they are too weak to be otherwise. Yet I saw by the look he cast upon the picture how ardently he loved that insipidity; and I felt as though 1 could have dashed the miniature to the ground and crushed it beneath my heal. ' From that hour my whole nature underwent a change ; passion was a very demon in my breast, and caught me by its subtilety, You may well recoil. Mrs. Mar bury: my own mother would have shrunk from me had she known

' I wrote the verses in the album ; but I wrote more than these. I made myself acquainted with my rival's parentage and antecedents, andhavingpracticed a strange handwriting, prompted by the fiends that wait on jealousy, I concocted a series of an

noymoua letters, in which truth was per' verted as to poison Aubrey's mind against he dainty maid he loved, and set an impassible barrier between them. • They were cleverly contrived asper sions, calculated to work on a proud, impetuous temperament; but they ac complished only one half my aim. He came raving to me —his confidante —with the last of these missives in his hand, md then, with seeming friendliness, I put the key-stone in the arch. I said that rumors of that kind had reached my ears before I knew he had an interest in Miss Chamberlain, but I had held my peace lest I should make mischief; and then I grew genuinely sympathetic, and once I saw the flashing eyes droop as if too strong a light had fallen. But if he saw my love he made no sign. The next day he left England, and I have never seen him since—l, who had sinned to win him.

1 He had brokon the bonds of betrothal, had gone abroad in the very madness of desperation, and left the poor innocent I had maligned to heal her wounded heart as best she might—and me to my despair. 1 From time to time I heard of him, but heard only of his deep, unquenchable iove for the girl he was too proud to marry. I had separated them indeed, but I brought him no nearer me, and my punishment began. I dared not and I could not confess, and reunite the severed lovers. So I wrappel the fox beneath my mantle and let it gnaw my life away. I was not without offers, Mrs Marbury, but I turned a deaf ear, and my mother died regretting that she had lef. me alone in the world. Alone, indeed ! I was in no frame of mind for society then ; I closed the doors of my heart against visitors ; closed the doors of my house against humanity ; and this room became at once a prison and a penitentiary to me. When Aubrey Wilton had gone some fire years, Marian Chamberlain accepted a less cred ulous and more generous lover. She married and bore a family; whilst I—l sat here in solitude, a gray-haired, isolated, miserable wretch, brooding over my own sorrows, lamenting my lost love, and growing harder to the world, more suspicious year by year. I fell into a pit which I had dug for another. ' And in all those twenty years did you never relent—never send Mr. Wilton a line to clear his lost love ?' I asked, when she ended.

' I was not prepared for the energy with which the sick woman snapped me up. • Why should I ? She was married. Was I to blacken myself in the eyes of him I adored—and still adore ? I know not why I should have bared my heart to you; but since you have been about me, I seem, T know not why, to feel how great a wrong I have done as I never felt it before'; and the keen eyes looked at me questioning^. 4 Miss Childers,' I said solemnly, ' you are standing on the frontier of another world. It 13 not my presence, but an awful impalpable one that sways you now and calls you to repent and atone if you hope yourself to be forgiven. 11 rose, gave her a sedative, and I left the room en some pretense that she might be alone with her conscience.

' The next day she was quiet, but the subject was not returned t\ In tbe middle of the night she awakened me with a touch.

' Is Mrs. Barford coming in the morn ing ?' she asked eagerly, though very feebly. 1 answered in the affirmative.

1 Let her go —to Lawyer Longmore's— and bid him—come quickly. 1 must make a fresh, will.'

' The will was made, signed, attested, and borne away by the lawyer.

'A week later eyes and lips were at rest; the long gray hair was coiled, as in life, round the coffined head, which could neither plot nor poetize more. The Chi' ders' stood open, the surface dust was removed from the drawing room ; the late mistress of the mansion was laid as dust (o dust herself, and Lawyer Long more read Miss Childers' will to the few friends whom feeling, curiosity, or expectation had brought to the funeral. ' With the exception of a legacy to Mrs. Barford, who had well earned it by long and faithful service, and a slight memorial to myself, Miss Childers devised the whole of her property, real and personal, ' to one whom she had never seen but had greatly wronged—to Mrs. , who when Marian Chamberlain (as is set forth), had been separated from Aubrey Wilton through the testatrix, in the vain hope to win him and his love for herself.'

'Relatives threatened to dispute the will on the plea of insanity, but they had not a tittle of evidence to support the plea; never was a clearer-headed woman than Miss Childers.

• And that, Mrs. Chappell,' said I, as I refastened my waterproof, ' was the true story of a more abundant and remarka ble coil of gray hair than that which you put away in yonder box.'

' May be not,' said she, 'if that gray hair had its chronicler likewise.'

' Perhaps you are right. One never knows !' So saying, away trudged

Maey Maebttey

The old Manageress.

A famous provincial manager, or manageress, was one Mrs. Bairer, con cerning whom curious particulars are related in the memoirs of Thomas Dibdin, and in the life of Grimaldi, the clown, The lady owned theatres

1 at Canterbury, Rochester, Maidstot, Tunbridge, Wells, Feversham, .]O and otber places, but was undergy1 to Have commenced her profession career in connection with a puw show, or even the homely ententa^ i ment of Punch and Judy. But.^' industry, energy and enterprise,^ of an indomitable kind. She general lived in her theatres, and rising $1 to accomplish her marketing and otKet household duties, she proceeded to take up her position in box-office, with the box-book- open before her, and resting upon it' a massy silver inkstand, which, with 5 superb pair of silver trumpets, several cups, tankards, and candlesticks of title same pure metal, it was her Honest pride to say that she had paid forthett with her own hard earnings. While awaiting for the visits ot those' desi rous to book their places for the even ing, she arranged the programme of the entertainments. Her education was far from complete, however, f ot although she could read, she was but an indifferent scribe. By the help of scissors, needle, thread, and a bundle of old play-bills, she achieved her p'u r . poses. She cut a play from one bill an interlude from another, a farce from a third, and sewing the slips neatly to. gether, avoided the use of pen and ink. "When the name of a new per. former had to be introduced, she left a blank to be filled in by the first of her actors she happened to enconn. ter, presuming him to be equal to the use of the pen. She sometimes beat a drum, or tolled the bell behind the scenes, when the representation needed such embellishments, and occasionally fulfilled the duties of prompter; In this respect it is unavoidable that she should be now and then rather oyer tasked. On one special evening she held the book during the performance of the farce of ' Who's the Duke ?' The part of' Gradus ' was undertaken by her leading actor, one Gardner, and in the scene of ' Gradus ' attempt to im pose upon the gentleman of the story, by affecting to speak Greek, the per former's memory unfortunately failed him. He glanced appealingly toward the prompt side of the sta^e. • Mrs, Baker was mute, examining the play book with a puzzled air. ' Give me a word, madam,' whispered the actor, ' It's a hard word, Jem,' the lady re plied. c Then give me the next,1 That's harder.' The performer was at a stand-still; the situation was becom ing desperate. 'The next!' cried Gardner furiously. ' Harder still!1 answered the prompter, and then per plexed beyond bearing, she flung tie book on the stage, and exclaimed aloud: ' There now, you have them all; tab your choice.' The lady's usual station was in front of the house however, She was her own money-taker, and to this fact has been ascribed the great good fortune she enjoyed as a man ageres. ' .Now, then.fcpit or box pit 01 gallery, box or pit V she cried incess antly. ' Pit! pit !' half a dozen voices might cry. 'Then pay bwo shillings. Pass on, Tom Fool!' for so on busy nights she invariably addressed her patrons of all classes. To a woman who had to quit the theatre, owing to the cries of the child she bore in her arms disturbing the audience, Mrs. Baker observed, as she returned the entrance money, ' Foolish woman! foolish woman ! Don't come another night till half price, and then give your baby some Dalby's Carminative-' *I remember,' writes Dibdin, ' one very crowded night, patronized by a royal duke at Tunbridge Wells, when Mia. Baker was taking money for three doors at once, her anxiety and very proper tact led her, while receiving cash from one customei', to keep an eye in perspective on the next, to save time, as thus : ' Little girl, get your money ready, while this gentleman pays. My Lord ! I'm sure your Lordship has silver. Let that little boy go in while I give hig Lordship change. Shan't count after your Ladyship. Here comes the Duke. Make haste! His Royal Highness will please to get his ticket ready while my lady—now, sir ! Now your Royal Highness !' ' Ch, dear, Mrs. Baker, I've left my ticket in another coat pocket ! ' To be sure you have I Take your Eoyal Highness' word. Let his Royal Highness pass! His Royal Highness has left his ticket in his other coat pocket.' Great laughter followed, and I believe the rank and fashion of the evening found more entertainment, in the lobby than on the stage.—[ All the Year Round.

EVENING STAR SUPPLEMENT, NOVEMBER 11, 1876.

Printed and Published by the Proprietor. Hen&i 5£ MT-, °f faraeU, at his General Steam Printing Office, Wyndham-street, in the City of Auckland, New Zealand : - . Saturday, November 11,1876,