The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-10-24

Y suffer, who felt kindnesses with an
intensity OF Keeling that never quite
matuEed. lie mad been known to keep
i aloof from people for months. even for
years, IL he could do them no good.
when they had fallen under any cloud
that might have made them. ~ he fam
cied, Jess glad 70 see him than Formerly.
4 In fact, he was most tenderly sensftiye
for the feelings of those on whom the
breath of scandal had blown over. 80
lightly, and though this Susceptibility
might render him a less strong chsr-
acter than it is well one filling the
fposition he held should have, 1t greatly
endeared him to many who cared more
for sympathy than strength.
This was the nature OF the man who
went to public ball for the first time
| in his life at the bidding and for the
4 pleasurepf his beautiful young wife.
/ It Is NOT necessary, for the further
anCe of my story, that ] should, place
a panorama OF that ballroom and its
occupants before the reader. 1t was
very much like other bathrooms ut
great hotels IN country towns, and ie
was filled with very much the same
sort OF people one sees under similar
circumstances elsewhere. Suffice IL to
say that among the guests was one, a
young civil engineer, who turned to
one OF the officers of the eth the in
slant the Lee party entered the room,
who Is that lady, do you known"
That is Miss Arnnitage, going to
marry the young fellow by her side;
he's rather a swell down here-the
Squire of Everton.p es
'tHer name Is not Armitage2o the
stranger said, half laughing.
Eyes, It Is, ]" the other replied, ,tI off
en- meet her at her uncle's house; the
lady in front on the old fellows arm is
his wife, and she's worth dozen of
MISS Armttage, or any other Miss in
the county that have SEEM"
TITS the lady in front whom asked
you about" the stranger said, quickly.
81 used to know her in Dnsseidorf."
"Then advise you to renew your ac-
quRintance with her as soon as posi-
BILE, his friend said, at which s1gges.
ton the civil engineer only shrugged
his shoulders, and answered:
She was very mucn blown upon then
under most awful cloud, in fact; she
may not care to be recognized, now she's
married, by any one who knew her
then." When he had said that, the
young man walked away TO confide the
same particulars 10 another friend he
mao mao IN Inc regiment and then to an
other, and SO the thing grew.
Grew-uutil II attained such proper
lions that 1t forced itself npon Frank
Lees ears and understanding before
the evening was half over. He, heard
halfallusions to it, caught murmera
respecting it, knew that it was sudden
ly dropped as he, approached on all
Sides for MIS-. Lee Wasa popular favor
lite and a prominent beauty. In his
dread that his uncle should hear It
then, with the eyes of the world upon
him, the young man was imprudent
enough to confide il to his own be-
trothed, who Indignantly repudiated
the bare idea OF so much as breath
ever having been raised about Mrs.
Lee. al will go to her at once, Frank,
and asked her IL she recognizes this
man who says he knew her, and tell
her what he says" 1t was in vain
Frank entreated Ethel not to do so; all
he could wrest from Ethel was n prom
Use that she would not tell Mrs. Lee
what the stranger had uttered respects
ing her until they reached home.
He was pointed out to Mrs. Lee, not
as a man who claimed to have known
her of old, but as q man who had been
engaged in experimenting mining
operations in Prussia, and who spoke
German fluently. And Mrs. Lee put
up her glass and looked at him with
the blank gaze of unrecognition. In a
| coWardIy way the man seized upon this
as ga proof that he had been right in
assuming that she did not wish any
back numbers from her life read, and
then laughed about little Kate Ches-
ter" in a way that made some other
men long to wiring his neck.
However, the story grew, gained
monstrons proportions, finally reached
Mr.. Lees ears, and broke his heart.
And then, when all the world seemed
ready TO turn against her. when her
husbands relations said ''little Fritz
ought TO be- taken from her and put
under proper guardianship then she
stood at bay and defied all the inhabi-
1 tants of Dusseldorf combined TO say
that she had been more than maligned.
She had been the object OF jealousy, the
/ object OF the basest .fRlsehoods, the
object of fierce female rancor, envy and
| evIl.speRking, but she had never been
| the object of bad mans guilty love,
or good woman's scorn. And the
man who blighted her life when 1t was
promising 10 be SO fair, who crushed
her husbands heart with shame, who
made her an alien to her child's fathers
kin, and robbed her OF a home and
peace, knew all these truths, and still
spoke In foul. mouthed idleness.