The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1868-07-02
A Princcly, Fortune Found and
Lost.
A MILLION A MINUTE.
[From Belgravia.l

"A hllsLlON "A MIN y H.
[From Belgravia1
That was my fortune This is no
dream, no romance. ~ set down
tthe simple TRUTH strange as it will
appear to many. During a portion
of my life that was my incomes
million sterling per minute-secur-
ed to me by papers held in my own
hands! Never had L conceived of
Fso much wealth as those papers en-
titled me TO-. and even as l read
them did not believe in their re-
ality. They were real, nererthe-
l'less. So was the fortune. SO, l
am persuaded now were the cir
cumstanees, romantic as they seem
/ ed, under which gained and lost
it.
The money came to me under the
will Of old Rodney Gauntlet. 'Ev-
erybody in the city knew him in
his lifetime-knew him as shrewd,
active. hot tempered man, and call
ed him s'old," while he was yet in
his prime As far as my memory
looks back, ,he justified the epithet
He looked old, Withered, dried up,
yet there was, plenty of life in him.
as those found who crossed his
path, or tried to overreach him in
the business transactions that took
him every day into the chief places
of resort in the city. p His black
ewes burnt under frost white bro ows,
and, when contradicted or opposed,
the purple blood would rush into
his cadaverous cheeks, OF swell the
veins in his forehead, till he was
fearful to look at, , sa ,e,ts -.
At ordinary times. he was mild
and gentle. Except that he was
always absorbed in business, he
might have beeno kind and tender.
To me he was sometimes SO. If he
ever unbent, it was to his little Julia,
as he called me, and that was more
often, I think, when = I had grown
out my childhood ando become a
woman; and so more 5ofa icompan
ion to him.. In my younger life /
remember fancying that he avoided
and even regarded me with dislike.
It might have been SO. 2 There was
no apparentoreason why; he should
regard me in any, other right, 1
was only, as / knew quite soon
enough, the child of an old friend
one Colohel Anthony Wyvern-
whom he had adopted out of char
ity. .-.>sss.s.-----.--
Having SO adopted me- he did
his duty by me-. All admitted that; !;
the praise of him in that particular
rang as a ceaselcss paan in his
ears-and in mine And I was
daily bldden to take note how good
he was, how loving and how gen
erous and what infinite return, by
!, way Of goodness, gratitude, docil-
[ity, perseverance, and / know not
what Other, virtues, all this demand
ed at my hands. l am afraid I
sometimes wished he had been less
to me, so that there might have
been some hope Of my being to
him what il was declared my duty
to become. t' l3 70
+. / tried my best, however; and he
believe, was satisfied. Ours was
not a very lively home Our home
was an old one that had held its
own in the city when the city had
even its palaces. But in the long
course Of time it had yielded, foot
by foot, to encroachment on all
sides, until it was fairly bricked in,
and utterly lost to public gaze. 1t
could only be reached by means Of
a passage through another house,
which had planted its great broad
back in front of our windows, and
] so obstructed our view and shut out
our light. This want Of light is
what 1 always most severely felt;
for the rooms were large, lofty and
proportionately gloomy; and there
was one with painted ceiling that
I dared not enter, for the figures
guant and writhing, always seemed
| alive up there in the gloom, and
that noting haunted even my dreams.
Old Rodney Gauntlett's own
rooms were on the ground floor;
they were like dungeons, but he
never saw them so. All the year
around he breakfasted and dinea by
candle 1ight-yellow wax lights, in
old plated candelabra. red and cop
per, were always lit for him night
and morning, That was his fancy,
and, like all other habits, had taken
firm root in him. 2j+ tf :1irl ---s
Bridget and L lived, up stairs.
Bridget, by, the way, was domestic
l-housekeeper, nurse and general
servant in one. She was old as her
master. Thin, white locks peeped
| from under her mob cap, bound
round with black ribbon, and
shone like silver Her skin was
yellow and wrinkled her hands
suggested claws, they were SO hard
and fleshless. But she had an eye
bright and true as a hawk S. it de-
fed age. Bridget was my good
friend and almost sole companion.
If I could have wished her other
than she was, it would have been in
respect Of her sense of Rodney
Gauntlett's goodness to me, and of
the hard measures Of gratitude she
| thought proper to exact from my
unhappy self in return. In this re-
spect she was unf1inching. l was
never suffered to forget that sub
sisted on charity, or that persons so
circumstanced had no rights-they
had only duties. $50 -l.
AS was saying, our rooms were
up stairs they were three in num-
Der, and formed the whole of the
second floor. My share comprised
very large bedroom, that had