Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-09-12
dQ(Ortestrr Daily Spp.


Iioil Vi all excellence, pecunlary, social and
rehglous: Public opinion has usually little
truth IN 1t; In this case it had good deal.
The deacon really was intelligent, upright. and
weltto-do. He was also forty, and a bachelor;
but he was human, and lie tell in love. OF
course this contingency had been provided for,
and Scheming mammals had had any quantity
OF accomplished deacons' wives got up to
order, to meet the hoped for demand. Not to
his order, however. He married Il beautiful
girl, made by God and herself, without fortune
or so.called accomplishments He gave her
the position OF Mrs Roberts, and she glided
gracefully into her duties, and accepted her
new honOrs with Il timid and grateful heart.
Inc batftcd mammas congratulated her with
the lips they had bitten in veXaton, "and all
went merry as marriage bell" But marriage
bells cannot ring forever, nor do they lnvarl
ably, as Tennyson has it, "ring out the false,
ring in the true" The go d people of M, ac-
knowledged Mrs. Lima flor that was the name
of the new bride,) as one of their upper ten"
In this case, the three cphers usually sup
posed to belong to the numera are not under
stood The sisters OF the deacon, all married
and members of the feminine decemvirate al
luded to above, were not, however, quite cor
dial in their recognition. There could be no
doubt that the gentle girl was really the wife
OF their brother, and entitled, as such, to their
iIlOet hlStliS uloilGu CODSluGGdllOH. let those
who have stake in life are naturally conser.
Vative, and the sisters whispered to each other
their fears lest the untaught rustic might
prove unworthy of her new position. Perhaps
they were secretly conscious of another fear,
thoroughly feminine, and not without founda-
ton. They might have feared that the native
refinement and artless grace would contrast
uniavorably with the high bred stolidity TO
which it all allied. So far as the two lovers
were concerned, the marriage was a happy
one, but as regarded remoter connections it
was obviously unequal. So the allied powers
kept vigiant watch over mistress Lima, criti
cised her shortcomings, real or supposed, and
whispered warlly in their private conclaves
the "the bride would have a fall"
The prediction was verified. The whole of
Mrs. Lina's pride was centered in her true,
manly, affectiOnate husband. If it was an
error, it was one severely punished, for he
fell Not morally, for he left a stainless re.
cord; it was only the physical man that
sank beneath the unexpected blow. He sick
Rned and died, and the broken heart of Lima
heaved with conclusive sobs and the sorrowing
sisters rObed themselves in lugubrious drapery,
in mute Acknowledgements of the treasure they
had lost Their brother was dear to them,
and justly so; nor could they forget that, by
what they considered an ill advised marriage,
he had alienated from his personal relatives
respectable portion of his estate. He left
will, in which he made ample provision for
his widow, and gave substantial tokens of his
regard to those who, for his sake and her own,
still owed her the kindness of a sister Indeed,
whatever might have been their previous feel.
ings, her present condition appealed torcby
to their compassion. Originally trail, and eX
hausted by anxiety and grief, her girlish
beauty wasted to a shadow and across the
dial OF her blighted life that shadow pointed
toward the new made grave.
Close to her tear-stained couch drew near
the provident DANES. As ravens gather
about stricken deer, so gathered their sable
forms about the bedside Of the despairing
Lima. They spoke of their fears that she
might soon rejoin the husband she had lost.
She replied that their fear was her most con-
sOiing hope. But they had also other fears
which IT was their purpose to acknowledge.
with as much dellcacy as the subject admitted
and their endowments supplied, they remind
ed her that if she died thus early, the bulk of
the Roberts estate would go, not to his hon,
ored kindred, but to her own miserable rela-
tons Her death would ALLEVIATE from that
never-to be impoverished family the funds
which her marriage never brought These
facts Lima meeky admitted, adding that as
her relatives asked aid from no man, but from
God and their own strong arms and honest
hearts, they would covet the gold OF the Rob
erts family as little as herself. She was there
fore willing to bequeath everything at her
decease, to the sisters of the friend through
whom it came
But the sagaclous matrons would not accept
the sacrifice. They were willing that she
should leave to her friends some tokens of her
brief and brilliant destiny. A thousand dol
lars would furnish these, besides providing
amply for the few days of suffering that re-
NAMED to her. Lima was weak, and weary of
life she was seriously ill, and she verify
thought that she must die. She shrank with
natural deicacy from a conflict with shrewder
minds, adopts in Il wisdom perhaps not entirely
from above. So, an instrument was drawn
up, whereby she resigned all claims to any
part OF her late husbands estate, with the eX.
ception of the sum that has been named and,
propped by pillows, she laid her trembling
hand in that of her physician, and was aided
by him to sign the fatal deed. Then, bidding
adieu to her reheating guests, she composed
herself to die.
We have called the document fatal deed,
and yet it was not without its advantages. 1t
relieved Lima at once from all care fer the set
Element of her husbands affairs, from all duty
as a champion of his righls-rights that are
seldom effectively sustained by widows UNI
practlced hands. The sum reserved, though
small one, was a present certainty, and,
as she fondly hoped, sufficient for her brief
demands She did not realize, posi-
bly, the reader may not have done So the full
significance of the price she had paid She
did not know that She had relinqushed all
claim to the kindly charities of life, to the fra
ternal recognition of her husbands kindred,
and of the church he served, of which she
had been unconsciously the sweetest flower,
Yet thus it must have been, for, mark the
sequel. Our poor young widow did not
die. She lived, lived as a hopeless invalid,
alternating between the easy chair and the un.
easy couch She lived 10 exhaust the little
sum she had reserved, although painfully eked
out by sad economies and sadder tolls Re-
Ginning upon pillows, she knit and stitched
whenever the tatering hands could aid the
untaltering heart. But at length the last dol
lar was spent, and death, the deliverer, came
not
There was but one resource remaining; the
). 1t of public charity was a bitter one, but it
was bread. She accepted it, the gentle, still
beautiful Lima, and the writer has seen her
grateful smiles, her patient tears, grazing with
strange amenities the last retreat of IMPROVE
dence and want. Then she realized, too late,
how entirely her brthright had been sold.
There, in that miserable interview, she owned
how eagerly her parched lips thirsted for the
early fruits. 1t mattered not to her that they
fell and persisted by thousands in the gardens
she had abjured. She had no claim to any
indulgence not nominated in the bond"
There, through the long summer Sundays,
she wept in her lonely room, while her chris
tlan sisters met in the editice so dear TO her
and partook of the syn boIs of the Redeemer's
love, from the elegant communion service that
was her husbands gift.
Readers, would that this story were not as
true as il is sad. There are strange discrep