Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1873-05-17
MIR. BoNsALL,s MATCH MAKING.

My uncle, Alexander NlcE arlane, was
waiting breakfast, an event very uncom-
mon with him, for Aunt Nancy was the
soul of punctuality Nevertheless she
was little late this morning. Eight
O'Clock was the breakfast hour, and it
was now fully ten minute past.
Aunt Nancy was not my Uncle Nc
Farlane's wife. He was a widower of
some fifteen years standing. Fifteen
years before, his wife had left him II
delicate little boy for a keepsake, and
had gone away, whispering with her last
breath that she was very happy. Her
mother and sister who had come to the
house to nurse her, remained after her
death according to Uncle McFarlane's
particular request. He would be glad,
he said if it were not asking too much o
a sacrifice, to have Mrs. Howard and
Nancy stay with him, keep up his house,
and attend to his little boy. So Mrs.
Howard, who was widow with very
stIaitened income, rented her little house
in the New England village where she
had always lived, and came to preside
over Mr.. McFarlane's spacious mansion
and liberal housekeeping in Greenwich
street, a fact which marks the date of
my story with sufficient exactness.
Mrs. Howard had been dead three
months, and still Aunt Nancy presided
over Uncle McFarlane's household
Neither of them had ever thought of any
change as either necessary or desirable.
Nancy had been fair, prim, and some
what quiet girl when she came to live
.x,l r,1h e,f, hA efI 4,
fair, somewhat prim woman of thirty
five, with pretty, soft brown hair, violet
blue eyes, and pure, soft, somewhat
changeful complexion. She was not in
the least like a modern young lady's
heroine. She had no particular aspira.
rations beyond the limited and old fash
ioned one of doing her dnty in that
state of life to which it had pleased God
to call her She did not consider her.
self martyr to uncongenial circum-
stances because she made Uncle McFar-
lanes shirts and mended his stockings,
and even the fact of going down into the
kitchen to do up his immaculate ruffles,
when old Mrs. Browns hands were to
lame, and the chambermaid's to unskill-
ful to be trusted with them, did not
awaken in her any desire to rush out in
to the world in search of IA career. No
such fancy had ever entered Nancy How
ards head. She was absolutely "con-
tented with her present condition." will
ing to go on making Uncle McFarland's
shirts, keeping his house, spoiling his
child, and ''making it pleasant for i'm,
as she simply said. Her great pleasure
consisted in doing muslin embroidery
visiting the poor, going to church, anC
reading the English classics, with now
and then a novel. If she had any trial'
she kept them to herself, contiding then
to no spiritual director, newspaper edit
or, or female friend. Such was Nancy
Howard at five-and-thirty.
My Uncle McFarlane was fine gentle
man in the true sense of the phrase. lie
was unimpeachable in integrity, spotlesS
in morals, in manners absolutely y perfect
"a little set in his way, and possibly
somewhat peculiar in his eating anC
drinking. He was also given to amusing
himself in a quiet way with the peculiar
tiles of those about him. But he neve
willingly hurt or neglected any ore, anC
he had certain genial graciousness o
manner, which made all his employees
from Mr.. Saunders, his confidential clerk
down TO black Sam, the carman, and Da
Wy, the errand boy, feel the better whel
he spoke TO them.
"Miss Nancy is little late this morn
ingl" observed Uncle McFarlane, a
Brown, his man, brought him his paper
eyes sir, she was out till after twelv
last night, at Sans STRIP
'Indeed! How was that %
swell, you see sir, Sans girl wa
took with quick consumption las
spring, and his wife amt very rugge
either. Miss Nancy, she's been there
good deal, and when Susy was struc
with death last evening, she sends 70
her. So Miss Nancy, she went and stai
till it was all over 1t was a great CON
fo to them, sir. You see, Sans wifi
she's got little young baby, too, an
altogether it comes hardp' Feai a.s'l
81 should say so indeed. We mus
see that everything is done Brown. Fin
out when the funeral is to be, and le