Weekly Calaveras chronicle., 1866-09-08
JEAN RATHBURNE'S LIFE.

A spring long and cold, short and
fervid summer, an autumn bearing scant
fruit-that was Jean Rathburne's life.
And now she is dead, and the long,
wild grasses are tangled above her grave
by vagrant winds which wanton through
them.
1t was the will she left behind her
which was the keynote to her life, and
made it Significant strange will, yet
perfectly legal, and proved in court like
the rest of them. She bequeathed, af-
ter a few trifing legacies, all her for
tune-some three hundred thousand
dollars-under the supervision of COM
petent trustees, to further the happiness
of seven young orphan girls. 1t was,
of course, the income which was to be
used thus, the money itself was to be
a permanent fund, and those whom it
enriched, when they married or other
wise ceased to need its aid, we're to have
their places filled by the trustees. She
chose the first board of managers her
self, and made provisions, when any of
the number should die, for the election
of others in their stead.
She explained her intention minute
| ly. 1t WIS not to make the girls good
merely, or respectable merely, or we'll
clothed and well-fed merely but, if
possible, to make them happy, to in
dulge their whims, and give their indi-
vidualities chance For she said, and
this voice from her very grave, was the
only complaint she had ever been known
to utter:
"One woman, who has found life very
sad, would like to make it brighter for
some of those who will live after her" "
That was all, quiet statement of
facts-she had found life very sad
but did any wall ever come out of Bit
terer depths?
Her parents had died before she
could remember them, and left her a
fortune and a guardian; left her, too,
with a nature at once shy and sensitive,
with a tendency to morbidness aud
hypochondria, which needed, sorely,
the influence f warm, loving, cheer
full home.
Instead of that Sampson Dredife and
his wife starved and froze her. | do
not mean literally; there was fire and
food enough in their great, comfortable
house, and Miss Rathburne, as an heir
ess, should, was served with the best.
But she was always Miss Rathburne
never Jeanie, or darling, or mother s
blessing, or hearts delight, or any of
those fond, foolish names familiar to the
lips of happy mothers. She knew we'll
enough that no one loved her, and that
strengthened her shyness, and deepen
ed her despondency.
So she grew up to twenty-one-
long, slow, cold spring, as said. Then
her fortune came into her own hands,
and with certain Widow Dredlife, a
sister-in-law of Sampson, to matronize
the establishment, she went into house
of her own. The widow carried with
her the old Dredlife influence, and the
new home was at first scarcely other
than a repetition of the old. Except
that now Miss Rathburne began to 60
into society, and was enough of an heir
ess to be received there with favor.
She was not pretty, yet her figure
was 1.-THE and slender, her complexion
was clear, and if she had ever been ami
mated might have been bright. Her
eyes were large and dark, but the fire
in them smouldered rather than spark
eled. If she had had little self-esteem,
if some one had told her now and then
that she was handsome, she might have
been so; for many woman sets up for
beauty on far less capital. But COM
pliments never lowered in the Dredlife
soil, and Jean had grown up feeling
herself hopelessly plain, till the feeling
had affected the very hue and lineaments
of her countenance.
She had no taste in dress either
women seldom have who do not see any
charm in their own faces. She wore
colors which made her look sallow or
dark nearly always, and her gowns de-
tracted from the grace of her figure
instead of being skillfully chosen to en-
nance it.
According to some creeds all this
should have made her good by making