Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1870-08-19
MISCELLANEOUS.
WYBROwE'S WILL.
BY "RUY."

On my way down to garden party at
Fulham one fine afternoon, with my
friend Charlie Twistleton, heard the fol-
lowing story of lady concerning whom
everybody was just chen talking.
Wybrowe, Brazilian millionaire, mtat,
seventy, or thereabouts, marries Helen
Chetwynd, impecunious belle, setat. nine
teen, daughter of q British diplomatic in
those parts; and, after two years of con-
nubial felicity, considerably dies. Wy
browe is jealous as Spaniard; and his
jealousy looks beyond his own life. So
he leaves terrible will behind him. This
cunningly contrived document provides
that his widow, then just twenty.one,
shall receive and enjoy an income of some
el5,O00 per annum so long-snd only so
long-as she shall remain unmarried.
That If she do marry again, she shall re.
eeive absolutely nothing-the entire
estate of the deceased passing to two dis
tant relatives, believed to be living in OBJ
scure poverty in London.
Now comes the most curious part of the
story.
A good many men besides old Wybrowe
went mad about la belle Helen out in Bra.
I'll notably man who WAS thought to
be nearly as big as Cresus-a half-Span-
lard, half Eng glishman, by name Alvarez
Smith. This hybrid was said to have the
temper of tienG, the face of a baboOn,
and the complexion of a .jaundice patient.
The frantic vehemelce with winch, when
at last he did speak, Smith pleaded his
case to her, nearly frightened Miss Chet.
wynd into Mysteries; the malignant black
scowl that twisted his ugly face till it
grew absolutely awful in its hideousness
when she Internationally declined his
proposals and shrank away from him,
haunted her sleep for many night after.
ward.
Alvarez Smith went away and thought
out his vengeance. This is how he took
it, after waiting patiently for three years.
During Wybrowe's lifetime he kept
quiet, and made no sign. When the old
man was dead, Smith broke in upon the
widow and with fall knowledge of the
provisions of Wybrowe's will, renewed
his former propositions, They were re.
jected agaiR-this time with the addition
OF certain words that Helen W,1browe
would have been more prudent not to
have spoken to such a man.
The same steamer which broughl the
widow home to England had amonly its
passenger Alvarez Smith. He never
once spoke to her, or molested her in any
way during the voyage; but his hungry
black eyes would rest upon her in way
that frightened her in spite of herself.
Those eyes watched her into the rail.
way carriage at Southampton; met hers
as he got out on the platform at Waterloo;
and, again, as the doors OF her sisters
house in Park-lane closed upon her.
Every time she went abroad she met
them; sleeping and walking, Alvarez
Smith haunted her. 1t was intolerable
but what could she do? She left town I;
he followed her. She shut herself up in
the house for days; and the first person
she saw when, by day or by night, she
came out again was Smith; always Alvarez
Smith. Mrs. Wybrowe grew nervous and
i'll under this implacable persecution,
which it was impossible to put an end to.
And the worst of it was that she felt her
prosecutor was gaining certain power
over her that those terrible eyes of his
fascinated her like basilisk's. She never
avowed this feeling to Lady Oswestry, her
sister, but she couldn't help confessing il
to herself
In few weeks after her arrival in Lon,
don, old Wybrowe's lawyer communicated
the following startling intelligence: A
person had bought up the reVersionary
interest of her husbands two distant rela.
tives in the income that had been left her
subject to her remaining unmarried
Wybrowe's kinsmen, too poor to be
troubled with many scruples, and consid.
ering that it was barely likely a woman
would give up fifteen thousand pounds a
year when she could keep it on such easy
terms, had greedily accepted the offer that
had been made them; had accordingly ex
ecuted the necessary legal documents
had received stipulated sum down, an6
had emigrated to Australia.
l The person who had thus bought then
out was, consequently, the person who
would claim the heavy forfeit from Heller
Wybrowe in the event OF her marrying
again. And it was hardly needful to tel
her that PERSONS name. She guessed il
insiinctiyely-Alyarez Smith.
This, then, was her position she must
either, at one-and-twenty, condemn her
self to lifelong widowhood, or relin
quish magnificent income to the mar
she detested. True court of law might
as her lawyer told her, set the will aside
but how could a woman petition such
court? Her woman's delicacy, ct al
events, rendered that out of the question
in her case. Again, there might be mel
who would think land who could afforC
to think) lightly of marrying a beggar
and among them there might be on,
whom she could love. But, wise in he
generation, Mrs. Wybrowe built no castle
in the air of this sort. She accepted tn,
situation teLLe qu'eiLe etGit !; shut herself III
no longer; went among her kind en-
cOuntered her basllisk with an impassabl
visage, and tortured her tormentor by al
ingeniously arranged sequence OF flrta
tiOn with Dagea1 madeira Of the art