Marshall County Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1855-1859, 1859-10-20

backward, but she'll be al right when she
gets her teeth
i Why, she's got her teeth, returned
Nurse Chivers. Hasn't she?
Only six, said. Many child's more
backward in walking than she.
/ don't say she won't walk 10 time, went
on Dame Chivers, but you can't have
handled that baby for fifteen months. and
rot have found out what's the matter with
it. Folks are talking of 1t in town, and
saying-'Harriet stopped.
Go on, cried DR.. Elliot, with compress
sed lips.
And saying Nurse ,Chivers continued,
that the doctor must know, if its poor man.
ma does not Though the look of the ba-
by might have told even her that it isl
don't like, broke off Harriet with renewed
tears, 'to repeat the cruel word she said
though Nurse Chivers was grieved herself,
and did not mean 1t in cruelty. But if
she's right, the dear infant will never have
wit nor sense through life, to comfort us.
Tighter, far tighter vas the straining
of his lips and idaia 4 SHADE OF pain lI;sl17
ed his handsome face. He bent his head
over the child. Ii lay wide awake, but
perfectly passive in Harriet's lay. its lips
apart, and It's glisteniDg eyes staring up
wards
Oh, sir, sobbad harriet 'is it true!-
And then she saw the expression on the
doctors countenance, and knew that the
news was no news to him. Who ever will
break it to my mistress? che walled.
1t must be suffered to come upon her by
gradual degrees, was his answer. But
had DR.. Elliot raised his eyes, he would
have seen that it had come upon her,
and not by gradual degrees. She had
come softly down stairs and inside the
room, lest the baby slept, just in time to
hear the dreadful sentence; and there she
stood. translixed and rigid, her eyes staring
as wildly as the cbild's. That far-off hor-
ror, seen but at distance, had come near
into her very home. Come instinct
caused Harriet to look round; she saw her
mistress, and shrieked out DR.. Elliot
raised his head, bounded forward, and
caught her in his arms.
Louisa! Good Heavens! | did not know
you were there. NV dearest wife do not
distress yourself; all Will be well; it is not
SO bad as these women think. Louisal
Louisal
No, no, the dreadful shock had come to
her, and nothing could soothe or foster it,
When she recovered power of motion, she
took the i'll fated child from the servant,
laid its checks against hers and moaned az
she swayed with it backwards and forwards.
Suddenly she looked up at her husband
If we could die--I and she--both of u.s.
she murmured, in despairing. helpless
sort of way, almost as if her own intellects
were going.
1t was indeed a fearful visitation, and it
made itself heard in throbs ofagonv Her
brain WIS beating, her heart was working;
care upon care, trouble upon trouble, had
followed her wlful marriage and now the
latest and greatest comfort, the only iov
that seemed left to her, had turned into
thing to be dreaded worse than death. She
had SO passionately wished for this child,
and now that it was given, what was it,
Her husband sat regarding her in gloomy
silence, plying her-she could see that
plying the i'll lated child. Oh, if she could
but undo her work and her disobedience--
if she could but go back years and be once
more careless. happy. dutiful Louisa Freer
Not even Tom Elliot should tempt her away
then.
How many, as her father said. have
echoed the same useless prayer. Ill-doing
first, repentance afterwards; bat repentance
can rarely, ifever, repair the ill-doing. All
must bear the sorrows they bring upon
themselves even though they may end but
with life but it seemed to Louisa Elliot, in
that first hour of her full affection, that
her punishment was greater than ever yet
fallen npon women.
TO BE CoNTINURD