Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1873-08-01

Just to show that she would not suffer dlcta-
tion. Thus domestic situation, not origi-
nally involving any certain evil, was distem-
pered into actual peril of speedy mischief.
As a weak man reminded of his errors in
an unwise way is not the less lowered in
his self-respect because the reminder has
reused in him re-entful feeling of injury,
So the husband advised against the wife or
the wife against the husband cannot remain
without some effect from the despised advice.
lie of the present narrative became jeal-
Gus, she disdained to humor the unfortunate
feeling, and there arose etween them dis
trust and unhappinesst t which their common
detestation of the gossiIe added an element
of perverse public display. One day, re-
turning from halfweek's business in
Clearfeld, the husband found his house ten
antless and hiswife gone. This was the eli
max of all Disguised and discontented at
everything in life: aware of her own defects,
but irritated against correcting them, as
much by the gossip as by her husbands
unavoidable change under it, the mis-
guided woman had finally abandoned her
married home and returned to the West.
Possibly the deserted man might have won
her back by a little wise concession and reassur-
ing solicitation but there was gossip again,
which, having precipitated the very result it
had deprecated by suggestive prophecy, now
held him to strict account as one bound to
prove his own virtue by discarding forever
the wife that had brought it to grief So he
made no effort to recall her, but went about
a moody, silent, heartbro&en man, scarcely
conscious of his own share in the folly
blighting his life Years passed, and the
growth of the village into goodly manuiac
turing railroad town brought such apprecia-
tion to his property and business that he be-
came comparatively wealthy. Nothing
changed him, however, from the brooding
gloom of spirit into which he had fallen on
the dav after his return from Clearfeld. and
he died, in February last, as lonely and un-
communicative as he had so long lived. The
story might have passed out Of remembrance
but for an incident of little more than two
weeks ago, when there appeared in the for
mer village faded, prematurely old, poorly
dressed woman, timidly inquiring for the
dead. Upon being told at hotel that he
was no more, she exhibited distress almost TO
iainting, and tottered brokcnly on her way
to the house Of an unmarried sister Of the
departed manufacturer, whittier she was di-
rected by surprised strangers Recognized
there as the fugitive wife of nearly ten years
before, and received pitifully, she had pen
itent's tale to tell Of vain regrets and griey-
Gus vicissitudes in the West, where. after
a period of painful refuge. she had finally
been reduced to to servile toll for her bread
in a household at Denver. Always hoping
to hear from the husband 50 passionately de-
serted, vet shrinking from what gossip
might say other if she made any overtures
to be taken back, she had persisted in the
miserable alienation until now, when her re-
turn was too late The sister, rebuking her
not, had promised her brother on his death
bed to welcome the wanderer in his name, if
she ever reappeared and the two women are
living together in tho home he left to the
one a. much rs 10 the other Probably in
the clearer light of a verging eternity be saw,
if not before, that if the wife Of his youth
had been weak in challenging idle criticism,
he had not been strong in distinguishing
thereof what was false from what was true,
and that if she had been foolish he had not
been wise-N Y. World.