Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1857-10-16

herself with wild energy
Letno one defraud my child of her
name,' she cried out. 1t is hers-she
has right to it. Father, mother, promise
me that you viii call her by this name,
Elinor Trumbun?"
The two people, with one consent, fall
tered the required promise, and then she
said. in humble tone,
Before I die, forgive me, my parents.
God knows I have loved you, in spite Of
ALL have done to make you suffer. Tell !
me that you forgive me-
They torgave her without repraach or
question. They blessed her with tender
tears, and, sitting at her beds head, they
watched her as she sank again into sort
of browse, still holding her babe to her
breast. After that she never opened
her eyes, but she murmured dreamily of
green fields and fragrant blossoms, and
the babblings of summer brooks, blent
now and then with loving words or tender
memories about her baby's father. Then
all was very still and they thought her
sleeping, but, somehow, I know not how,
unseen and silently, from that calm her
soul stole forth and was translated to the
great endless calm lying beyond. Mar
Igaret was dead
For the next two days the storm ragged
with unabated violence. The snow, swept
by the fierce wind from the mountain
tops, was piled high in the valleys, and
Moses Grant and his wife were all alone
with their dead child and the living babe
she had left them. In the interim much
of his old sternness had come back to the
elders heart, the selfcommand and reti-
cence to his outward life. I think he re-
membered his promise, that the little one
should be called by the name Of her faith
er's family, with a kind of grim satisfac-
ton IN keeping with the silent pride of
his character. The village where he
lived was in the western part Ct Connec-
ticut, under the shadow of the mountains
and Trumbull was an old and proud name
in the far eastern portion. Gilbert Trum-
bull had won Margaret Grants love
.during a shooting season among the hills
and a few months after he had left May
field, driven forth by her fathers harsh
ness and scorn, she had followed him.
Trumbull was name that any woman
might be proud to wear worthily, and No
ses Grant was we'll resolved that the
world should never know, through him,
, that the name did not legitimately belong
to his infant grandehild.
For two. days the elements did battle,
! but the third morning of Elinor Trum-
| bulls life, rose calm, and bright and fair
Early in the day Moses Grant went forth
to seek the pastor of the old Presbyte-
rian Church, in which he had been an
elder so many years, and arrange for his
5 daughters burial.
That afternoon, where the snow had
5 been scooped away behind the church
= on the hilltop, they Iayed the elders
last child, beside her six brothers and
sisters, in her narrow grave and she,
!, the youngest, the efairest, slept best, per-
}, haps, Of all, for the calm is most precious
r that comes after the widest storms.
Very dear she was to the grey-hair-
b ed pastor who had baptised her in infan-
0 cy, and had always accounted her the
L gsntlest and sweetest among the lambs
of his fock-very dear to every heart
:, among the many which beat around >her
e grave that winter day, But they asked
2 few questions concerning her death OF
It her life. She had been the elders ia.
h vorite child, they all knew, but no one
! had ever heard him mention her name
since the summer night when she wen
away from Mayfeld--no one knew
d whether alone or in company. So they
e respected the old mans sorrow in silence
e II was not many months before ovel
v Margaret's grave there rose a simpl,
!; head-stone, but no ones curiosity wa
If gratifed by the inscription. 1t only
e, said,
! ''IARGARET-AGED EIGHTEEN YEARS
The child was duly christened. The
d country folk understood what an old anC
n respectable name she bore and at lengtl
II the wonder died away, and she was lef
$ to grow up in the quiet stiffness Of tn,
d old red house.
Is Indeed very few were brought int
'r any near connection with her, for Nose
% Grant and his wife neither made nor re
ceived any visits now. Her only regula
g education was impaired by her grandpa
OF rents, who taught her the three needfuI
lie of an oid-fashioned New England wo
sr mar, m raa5 and write and einbar T,