Fair Play

HOW HARRY BEAT HIS UNCLE.

"I never did see such a sight in all my life," saith Mrs. Narley, elevating her two rheumatism-twisted old legs in the air. "Dust on them beautiful velvet carpet; glass in the conservatory windows all broken; chickens scratching up all the geraniums on the front lawn, and the lazy servants idling away their precious time; poor dear Mr. Avenel and Harry don't know any more what's going on than if they were boarders. Says I: Dear heart-alive, Mr. Avenel, this is enough to make your poor wife turn in her grave."

Says he—you know his pleasant—'Well, I know it isn't just right, Mrs. Narley, but what can I do?' And I answer, says I, 'Get a housekeeper.' Says he, 'Where?' Says I, 'Advertise.' Says he, 'Mrs. Narley, you've hit the nail on the head. I'll advertise tomorrow.' And that's how that paragraph happened to be in the papers?"

Here Mrs. Narley stopped to catch breath, and nodded emphatically at her auditor, a pale woman dressed in deep mourning, with the unbecoming framework of a widow's cap around her face.

"And do you think I would suit the gentlemen?" the latter asked timidly.

"You can but try." was Mrs. Narley's encouraging response. "Mr. Avenel's as easy as a lamb, and not one o' them as is everlastingly checking off bills and counting nickel pennies, and Harry's dreadful pleasant-tempered. Any way, if I was you, Mrs. Hawkhurst, I'd go up and see."

And Mrs. Hawkhurst, holding her pretty little daughter by the hand, went up, accordingly, to the handsome stone house on the hill.

There she found Mr. Avenel in a state of temporary siege, for others besides herself had seen the tempting advertisement, and made haste to answer it. There were fat women and lean, tall women and short, Scotch women and Germans, smiling slovenly women, and trim, sharp-visaged women, women who had seen better days, and women who evidently hadn't.

Mrs. Hawkhurst looked around somewhat discouraged by the formidable array of rivals, about to turn away, with the little Juliet clinging to her hand, when Harry Avenel advanced.

"Do you wish to see my uncle, ma'am?" he asked courteously.

"I—I called about the housekeeper's situation," meekly murmured the widow.

And Harry showed her in at once. The fat and the tall, the German and the Scotch, the sour and the sweet went. Avenel decided to engage Mrs. Hawkhurst as his housekeeper, with permission to keep Juliet with her.

"She is all I have, sir," said the housekeeper apologetically; "and she will try to be useful about the house."

"How old is she;" asked Mr. Avenel.

"Fifteen sir."

"Well let her stay." said the widower good humoredly. "She'll eat no more than a chicken, and I dare say she can do a great many odd things about the place."

Mrs. Hawkhurst proved herself an executive officeress of the greatest ability. Gradually the "chaos and old night" of Avenel place was reduced to system and order. The wheels of housekeeping revolved so softly that no one knew they had moved, yet these were the results. You scarce ever saw the housekeeper glide about the halls, yet the servants declared her omnipresent. Mr. Avenel found himself actually the inhabitant of a home once more as the years slowly passed away.

He was sitting on a piazza one day, smoking his cigar, and watching the graceful movements of Juliet Hawkhurst, as she was planting vines in a marble vase that occupied the center of the lawn, when Mrs. Narley came out.

"A nice evening, sir," said Mrs. Narley. "Oh there she is?"

"Who?" Mr. Avenel asked.

"Why, the precious child, Juliet," answered the old lady sharply, "I haven't no patience with her, that I haven't."

"What has she been doing now,' asked the widower with an amused tone.

"Why she's refused Ben Nichols' eldest son, as likely and beforehand red a young fellow as there is in the country."

Mr. Avenel started.

"Ben Nichols! Why, Mrs. Narley, she is only a child."

"She's seventeen next week." nodded Mrs. Narley. "and high time she thought of settling."

Mr. Avenel looked across to where Juliet stood in her pink gingham dress, the soft summer wind stirring her curls, and her cheeks as softly tinted as the standard rose on the lawn. Seventeen! Was it possible that the little Juliet Hawkhurst had grown to be seventeen years old?. Oh, relentless Time, that would not stand still! -Oh, cruel years, that went by and stole the fair brightness of childhood away! So Ben Nichols had actually asked Juliet Hawkhurst to be his wife!

"I wish you and Harry'd talk serious to her 'bout it." went on Mrs. Narley. "Taint likely she'll be any more such chances as that."

"No, to be sure not." said Avenel abstractedly.

"And o'course she'd oughter think it over well." added Mrs. Narley.

"O certainly—to be sure !"

When Harry Avenel came home from the city that evening he found his uncle in a brown study.

"Harry." quoth the widower.

"Yes, uncle."

"I've been thinking"

"So I should conclude, sir, from the H-shaped wrinkle between your brows," laughed the young merchant.

"Well, and what has been the topic of your meditations, Uncle Joe?"

"Why I was thinking what would become of us if Mrs. Hawkhurst were to take it into her head to leave us."

Harry opened wide his merry hazel eyes at the idea.

"What made you think of such a thing, sir?" he added.

"housekeeper's situation always, Harry."

"No to be sure not."

"She has become very essential to our domestic happiness, Harry," went on Mr. Avenel.

"Yes—I grant you that, Uncle Joe."

"And I really don't know how we could manage to exist without her."

"Raise her salary, uncle," suggested Harry.

"No, I hardly think it would answer my purpose; but. Harry—"

"Well, uncle?"

Mr. Avenel looked slightly sheepish.

"Can't you imagine any other way of keeping her here?" he asked.

Harry stared at his uncle.

Mr Avenel felt disposed to give him a hearty shake for his stupidity.

"Oh." cried the young man, with a sudden dawning of lucidity over the darkness of the brain. "You don't mean—matrimony, uncle?"

"Yes I do!" quoth Mr. Avenel, stoutly. "Would you object, Harry?"

"I, uncle?"

"Because you are the only person interested besides myself—and her."

"My greatest interest, uncle, is to see you happy," the young man answered, wringing the elder's hand.

"And—if I, too, should conclude to marry at no very distant day?"

"Why then," cried Mr. Avenel gaily "we can all live together, just as we do now. and the happiest family in the world."

And he went into the house, whistling as he went, "John Anderson, my Jo, John," as blithe as a boy of sixteen.

Juliet Hawkhurst was standing by the little side garden gate that evening, thoughtfully watching over her right shoulder, of course, the slender silver crescent of the new moon.

Juliet had certainly blossomed into a perfect little rose of a maiden, during the years she had been an inmate of Avenel place. She was fair haired and rosy, with long eye lashes, deep blue eyes full of shadow purple gleams, and a complexion like rose-colored satin; and moreover, there was in her very movements a self possessed grace and dignity of mien: that was inexpressibly charming. Juliet Hawkhurst had been born a lady but untoward fate had made a housekeeper's daughter of her.

As she stood there, leaning over the iron rail of the gate, a footstep sounded behind her.

"Juliet!"

She turned with a little rose blush and smile she fain would have concealed, and Harry Avenel came up and stood close beside her.

"Little elf, you thought you had hidden away from me, but you see I have contrived to find you out even here! What makes you blush, and look so confused?"

"Do I?" And Juliet fixed her gaze very steadfastly on the green turf at her feet, where a single yellow dandelion was doing its eye of downy gold for the night.

"Listen!" cried Harry triumphantly. "I've got a piece of news for you."

"What is it?"

"What should you think of a step father, eh, little one?"

Juliet looked up this time in real and genuine astonishment.

"A stepfather, Harry?"

"My uncle has confided to me this evening that he thinks of marrying. Juliet, and from all that I can gather, the bride is none other than your mother. So when we are married there will be a nice little family circle of us, eh?"

And the audacious young man belted her slender waist with his arm. and, ventured to draw her a little closer to him.

Ah, but Harry, you are all wrong.' cried Juliet, crimsoning and smiling like a June flower. "I—meant to tell you of it, but somehow the words would come to my lips. Your uncle told me also that he had concluded to marry again, and—he asked me to be his wife"

cried one had struck him a blow. "You! Why, Juliet, you are young enough to be his daughter."

—Perhaps I am." said Juliet meekly.

And what did you tell him? You accept him, of course? He is rich and I am poor, and all the girls like gold."

"Harry!"

"Tell me quick, Juliet" he cried, almost passionately.

"Don't keep me longer in su-pet-se.
.I told him." Juliet answered innocently, "that I had already promised to marry you.

"My little dove:" and Harry Av- uncle's dark face brightened into sunshine once again. "And you were right. For May and November never yet were happily mated. My uncle is an old fool, and yet I can't blame him Juliet, when I look at your sweet face.

The countenance of Mr. Avenel was slightly confused when he met his nephew at the breakfast table the next morning: but further than that. there was no sign of the discomfiture he had undergone He gave Juliet an exquisite set of wedding pearls when she was married, and congratulated Harry after a very cordial fashion.

But he never proposed to Mrs. Hawkhurst, and as she never expected any thing of the sort, no harm was done.

And everything goes on at Avenel place just precisely as it ought. Mr. Avenel keeps his housekeeper and Harry has gained a wife