The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1866-08-18
JEAN RATHBURNE'S LIFE.

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-a strange will, yet
perfectly legal, and proved in court like
Il few trifling legacies, all her fortune
some three hundred thousand dollars
under the supervision of competent
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 en-
riched, when they married or otherwise
ceased to need its aid, were 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 minutely.
1t was not to make the girls good
merely, or respectable merely, or we'll
clothed or well-fed merely; but, if pos
sible, to make them happy, to indulge
their whims, and give their individual
tiles chance. For she said, and this
voice from her very grave was the only
complaint she had ever been known to
utter:
zone 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, a quiet, calm 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 fortune
and guardian; left her, too, with Il
nature at once shy and sensitive, with
a tendency to morbidness and hypochon-
dria, which needed sorely the influence
of Il warm, loving, cheerful home.
Instead of that Sampson Dredlife and
his wife starved her and froze her. do
not mean literally; there was fire and
food enough in their great, comfortable
house, and Miss Rathburne, as an heiress
should, was served with the best.
But she was always Miss Rathburne-
never Jeanie, or darling, or mothers
blessing, or hearts delight, or any of
those fond, foolish names familiar to
the lips of happy mothers. She knew
well enough that no one loved her, and
that strengthened her shyness, and
.deepened her dependency.
So she grew up to twenty-one-a long,
slow cold Spring, as l said. Then her
fortune came into her own hands, and
with n certain Widow Dredife, "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 Il
repetition of the old. Except that now
Miss Rathburne began to go into society,
and was enough of an heiress to be re-
ceived there with favor.
e She was not pretty, yet her figure was
1.-THE and slender, her complexion was
clear, and if she had ever been animated,
might have been bright. Her eyes
were large and dark, but the fire in them
smouldered rather than sparkled. If
she had had n little self-esteem, if some
'one had told her now and then that she
was handsome, she might have been so
for manya woman sets up for beauty
on far less capital. But compliments
never lowered in the Dredlife soil, and
Jean had grown up feeling herself hope
iessly plain, till the feeling had affected
the very hue and lineaments of her
countenance.
b She had no taste in dress either
women seldom have who do not see any
charm in their own faces. She wore
eolors which made her look sallow or
dark nearly always, and her gowns de-
tracted from the grace of her figure in.
stead of being skilfully chosen to en-,
nance 1t.
According to some creeds all this
should have made her good by making
her humble, but tit had just the opposite
effect. 1t nourished secretly bitter
cynical pride, Il grudging sense of injus
tice, hard self-contempt-noNious
weeds which do not grow in that sweet
Valley of Humiliation where Bunyan'.
pilgrims walked, and the herb called
heartsease fiourished."
This was just thestate-sick Of herself,
at odds with the world, yet desperately
bent on wringing happiness out Of some,