The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1872-03-23

den end came to little domestic drama,
for which we purpose to make room here.
We believe its meaning bears more nearly
on the lives of large class of our readers
than even the national debt or the choice
of our next President.
About twenty years ago girl baby was
born to carpenter and his wife, who had
five boys already swarming and squabbling
about the three-roomed house. The baby
shared the fate of solitary girls among
brothers. She was the something rare and
unwonted which had never come into their
common life before; she was the bit of a
porcelain among rough crockery; her
father and the bigger boys dubbed her
"little lady," carried her out proudly on
Sunday afternoons when her own clothes
were coarse and patched enough; but she
never lacked a bit of embroidery or q
feather in her cap. She, unlike myriads of
other children, was born to no memorable
inheritance of poverty or dirt or crime
The carpenter was hard working, honest,
domestic old man whose highest ambition
was to give each of his boysa steady trade,
| THAT they might never need take to shifty
va to earn meal For Lucy,o course,
ne hoped for something better His wife
was thrifty Scotch Irishwoman who had
lived in one house at service for fifteen
years before her marriage, and could now
command high salary at any time as
housekeeper. "Girs in the old country"
she said, "were set to work from the time
they could walk. They did not need to
drudge so here. There were chances for
them in free country She never passed a
| rich mans daughter, delicately dressed,
that she did not think of these ''chances,"
chances that numbered not only easy living
and refinement, but equipages. velvets,
diamonds Education placed all men on
level. Her mothers heart was sore and
tender. Why should not her little girl
enter into that high unknown world of
luxury from which she had been shut out
God had made no life so full of blessings
that it ought not to be possible to Lucy
with her loving blue eyes and wonderful
bright hair. 1t was quite true that God
had made no life Of happy womanhood
which was not possible to the child She
had practical nimble intellect, was frank,
earnest, affectionate; bushes and tears
came quickly, signs of a delicate nature
and tender conscience, befitting to a SER
want as queen, both of them being Gods
children. One would have said the girl
was born to be in time pure maiden,
loving wife, a faithful mother.
She went to school years after her broth
ers were at work, but learned little more
than to read and write; whatever ability
she had assuredly did not lie in the path of
book-knowledge; the boys bought her
cheap piano atauction, on which she strum-
med few street airs. People who noticed
the girls readiness and winning manner
told her mother it was time she was max
ing some provision for her. and offered to
take her into their houses as servant. But
meninl work was a certainty which to
Lucy's vague chances was an insult. Even
drudgery at home was spared her that she
might run with her school companions, or
read the cheap papers of the day. Gradu-
ally the fine delicacy faded out of her face;
her voice grew loud; the quick step drag
ged lazily; it become matter of course
for her to watch her old father work for
her while she sat idle. At last the turn
came; the elder brothers married; the old
man and his wife died; deformed brother
kept the house with Lucy, but it was nee
essary that she should earn her own living.
There were half-a-dozen homes open to
her, where she would have had light work,
which would have fitted her for her duties
when she married, high wages, and the
protection and seclusion of n refined Chris
tan family. But this girl. whose master
was born in a stable, was indignant at
being asked to take the place of servant.
She went to mill. The wages were good
She had her ambition. Velvets and dia-
monds made the lady. She could, at least
flaunt in Terry and Milton gold She had
the imagination of other young girls-the
zest for love adventure. No knights or
gentlemen came about the mill, no lovers
compliment from young men on the streets;
the encounter on the street-cars going
home at night.
The story is told. There came 4 day
when the deformed brother, who haa
watched over her since she was baby
with a sorer tenderness because no other
woman could ever be near or dear to him,
cursed her and drove her from the door,
She went gladly. The street life suited
her now; for the change in the girl did not
begin in dress or face, or voice, it worked
out from within. Year by year her train
ing had corrupted soul and brain. 1t mat
tered little when the symptoms of decay
showed themselves to the world. For
years she has tested the street life. Last
week it ended. In the bright sunlight
bloated, filthy woman crept out of the van
into the stone archway of the city prison,
and the iron gates with their heavy clang
shut on her, not to open for two years
"Lucy -, sentenced for grand larceny"
Whether, when they open, her ruined body
will be there to drag itself out into the
sunlight again, matters little. 1t may live
until old age. But Lucy, honest, unselfish,
pure in thought died long ago. If it had
been only to sleep with her mother on
yonder hill side, we might have made the
grass green above her, knowing that the
child would come again. But she, still
living, went down into grave from which
there is no place of resurrection, though
we seek it carefully and with tears Per-
haps it is a sotry without a moral-at least
it has none if mothers do not find it for
Y. Tribune.
A CORRESPONDENT of the london .Specta-
tor thinks that the Chicago and forest fires
resulted from the passage of great mystic
rious atmospheric stream. which arose in
longitude 60 degrees, swept with a cyclone
Antigua and the Virgin Isles on the 21st of
August, the Bahamas on the 23d, and then