The Columbia Democrat. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1837-1850, 1839-07-06

bred horse or favourite greyhound. She
could make shirt and pudding, darn
stockings, rear poultry, keep accounts, and
read the newspaper; was as famous for
gooseberry wine as Mrs. Primrose, and
could compound syllabub with any dairy
woman in the county. There was not such
handy little creature any where; so
thoughtful and trusty about the house, and
yet out Of doors, as gay as lark, and as
wild as the wind: nobody was like his Dora.
So said and so thought Farmer Cresswel !;
and before Dora was ten years old, he had
resolved, that in due time, she should mar
ry his son Walter, and had informed both
parties Of his intention.
Now, Farmer Cresswell's intentions
were well known to be as Interchangeable as
the laws of the Medes and Persians. He
was fair specimen Of an English yeoman
a tall, square-built, muscular man. stout and
active, with a resolute countenance, keen
eye, and an intelligent smile, his temper
was boisterous and irascibe, generous and
kind to those whom he loved but quick to
take offence, and slow to pardon, expecting
and exacting implicit obedience from all
about him. With all Dora's good gifts, the
sweet and yielding nature of the gentle and
submissive little girl was, undoubtedly, the
cause of her uncle's partiality. Above all,
he was obstinate in the very highest degree
had never been known to yield point or
change resolution and the fault was the
more inveterate, because he called it firm
ness, and accounted it virtue. For the
rest, he was person of excellent principle
and perfect integrity; clear-headed, prudent
and sagacious fond of agricultural exper-
iments, and pursuing them cautiously and
successfully good farmer and a good
man.
His son Walter, who was, in person, a
handsome likeness of his father, resembled
him, also, in many points of character; was
equally obstinate, and far more fiery, hot,
and bold. He loved his pretty cousin much
as he would have loved a favorite sister,
and might very possibly, if let alone, have
become attached to her as his father wish
ed: but to be dictated to, TO be chained down
to distant engagement to hold himself
bound to mere child,--the very idea was
absurd; & restraining,with difficulty, an alb
rupt denial he walked down into the village,
predisposed, out of sheer contradiction, to
fall in love with the first young woman
who should come in his way; and he did
fall in love accordingly,
Mary Hay, the object of his ill. fated pas
sion, was the daughter Of the respectable
mistress of small endowed school at the
other side of the parish. She was deli
cate, interesting creature, with a slight,
dropping figure, and fair downcast face,
like snow-drop, forming such contrast
with her gay and gallant woer, as Lcve, in
his vagaries, is often pleased to bring to-
gether. The courtship was secret and te-
dious, and prolonged from months to years;
for Mary shrank from the painful contest
which she knew that an aVowal of their at
tachment would occasion. At length her
mother died and deprived of a home and
maintenance, she reluctantly consented to
private marriage. An immediate discovery
ensued, and was followed by all the evils,
and more than all, that her worst fears had
anticipated. Her husband was turned from
the house of his father; and, in less than
three months, his death, by an infammato-
ry fever, left her desolate and pennyess
widow unOwned and unassisted by the
stern parent, on whose unrelenting temper
neither the death of his son, nor the birth
of his grandson, seemed to make the slightest
impression. But for the general sympathy
excited by the deplorable situation and
blameless department of the widowed bride,
she and her infant must have taken refuge
in the workhouse. The whole neighbour
hood was Jealous to relieve and to serve