Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1871-03-02

One day it was brought home dead, from
some infant disorder. She fancied thai
it might have recovered had she beer
near to cherish and care for it. She
would have given worlds to have heard
about its last baby hours-how it begun
to smile, to COO over its playthings. II
narrowed her to think that perhaps nc
tender, longing eyes took its last dying
look, no gentle hand ministered to it
she wept to think that all had happened
precisely as if the child had been moth
I erless. " s--
After this affairs moved less SMOOTHLY
than before; there seemed blight upon
the household. Mr.. Dunn often came
home now out of temper; indeed, he
seemed to have used that attribute so
generously as to be always in the voca-
tive; but now he sat late at table, drink
ing deeply, finding fault with the viands,
with the weather, the market-with
Jacqueline, her voice, her words, her
Misunderstanding at nothing.
Why did you marry me ?" she once
asked him, timidly enough. 81 am sure
you did not love me-
" married you, madam" he replied,
" in order to make two miserable
| I" congratulate you on your success"
she retorted. Crosses were her daily
portion now and if she did not always
bear them heIoically, who can cast the
| first stone She would have parted from
her tormentor long ago, but what assu-
rance had she that the proof of Marks
wrong-doing had been destroyed? Per
haps it was in his power to ruin Mark
yet. Should she faint by the way, and
make her sacrifice of none effect? AS
her husbands character developed, she
began to fear that circumstances had
been against Mark Stretton, to see how
easy it had been to hoedwink and mis-
lead her unsuspecting mind. Why had
she not insisted upon seeing Mark, and
hearing the case from his own lips?
Why, but because she was then innocent
and guileless, and this man had only
been able to teach her suspicion. But
nothing of this helped her now however
much she was growing to dispise this
man, she was now his wife, she bore his
name, she had promised to love and
obey him. If she had not kept that
promise altogether, was it her fault q? She
had begun well; she had meant to
ignore the past; to be scrupulous in
her duties but one never begins well
without love. The grandest housekeep-
ing results in chaos without that vital
element, and this case surely offered no
exception. Besides, in a material view,
things were becoming less opulent in
this household than before. The table
was not so bounteously spread, the
linen was looking thin, the carpets were
less tufted, and even the shimmering
silks of the mistress were wearing rusty.
The servant, whose chief task it had
been to attend the bedridden father,
had long since been dismissed. Jacque-
line looked after him herself now, and
found pleasure in returning to the du-
ties of her old free life but it was only
sort of make-be1ieve, for If Mr.. Dnnn
returned home and observed her at any
time in such attendance, he would
threaten to send the useless old fellow,
as he called him, to the hospital or the
alms-house. She had not so much
pocket-money now at her command as
would buy a plaster for the rheumatic
back, or little fruit for the dainty pa
late. The house of Gall & Dunn had
failed some time ago, and the junior
partner was making a precarious living
the public. But Jacqueline knew moth
ing of this. She only knew that they
had left their fine house, and gone into
lodgings; that sometimes there was
nothing in the larder for a whole day
that her husband often let himself in
at midnight, sometimes stumbling up
stairs to his room, and sometimes over
taken by heavy sleep in the hall below.
And he was no saint next morning, box
ing and frightening children on the
slightest preteXt; taunting his wife with
having squandered his patrimony;
taunting her with wearing fine clothes
unpaid for; with the support of her beg
carly father with marrying him, George
Dunn, for his money.
You know better than that, George
- che cold in raYN1,y
"Why did you marry me, then &?
Come, give me reason. You married
me to get rid of me, perhapsl Capital
What a success! Do you want to know
why married you ?'' -
f "It doesn't signify now,'' she re-
turned.
"Zounds! but it does signify, let me
tell you. 1 married you because I hated
Marx Strettors !''
And so Jacqueline sat in her black
gown, and looked at the panorama of
her past, counting the crosses on the
quaint carnelian seal. Many crosses
in life." Did they end here? All, no
The bitterest, perhaps, but not all. A
widow, with four mouths to feed, and
as many backs to clothe, and as many
greedy minds to satisfy, was not likely
to have an easy time of it-a widow
without friends, without money, with
out vocation. She tried sewing, but it
hardly paid her rent; she entered a
mill, but the noise and heat took away
strength, and threw herupon a sick bed.
The tenement she had rented looked out
upon the rear of a beautiful garden,
the entrance to which was a whole
square distant, where the finer mansions
of the city were clustering upon an up
per street.
Jacqueline had been used to let her
gaze wander through this delightful
place as she sat at work. She had
watched the grapes cluster and bow the
trellises, the speckled pears redden to
the sun, the peaches hand like velvet
tassels on the overburdened trees, the
plums gather bloom and sweetness with
every hour. When the gale had played
roughly among the boughs, she had
looked at the windfalls of golden pip
pins, and thought what a repast they
would furnish for her hungry brood.
All their intoxicating odors, mingling
together like bouquet of flowers, came
floating in at her open windows, till it
seemed as though the very spirit of the
fruitage had eXhaled into the atmos-
phere merely to make Jacqueline cove
tous and the children's mouths water
with longing. But now, as she laid upon
her sick-bed, the beauty of this fair
neighborhood returned to her like
picture sometimes she dropped asleep
| to find herself walking under those fra
grant boughs, with. the dazzling blue
| breaking through the netted limbs, and