The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-02-06

pared to pass out, leaving them With the
boy lying as if dead ON the floor with no
more apparent concern than If he had
knocked over rabbit. 1t was all in the
way of his rofession--merely unit in
his ayerages-and he knew he had not
killed him.
"Now, then, MY Beatty" he laughed,
turning to the poor wretch alternately
covering and raving in his grasp, "tG
your house, if you please; and then we
will get our little business settled"
SO he passed out through the village,
so far consenting to appearances as to
cover with shawl the golden head that
had so lately borne itself in triumph, and
which was now so bitterly abased, and to
conceal the cruel handouts that shone
among the bracelets on, her wrists. She
was prize worth takifig, and he was
pleased with his days work.
Years passed, and Kate Hyslop, for all
her money and unrelaxing determination
to marry Walter, was Kate Hyslop still,
and Walter Drummond, a sad, grave
man, prematurely old. and always bear
ing that heartbreak of his about with
him, was living in London, in an isolated
miserable fashion enough, seeming to
have little to do with life any way, and
hope. His father and mother were dead
and he had made no new friends. The
only interest he took Ia anything was in
prisons and reformatories. These he Wis
tied constantly; constantly, too, wander
ed about the lower hauntS of poverty and
vice; or, suddenly changing his method,
he would roam about The park and the
fashionable squares, always searching,
always hoping, and ever pursuing what
he never overlook. His search be-
came kind of monomania with him !;
but he never saw again the woman he
sought, though day by day he said to
himself-now the moment had surely
come, he would find her to-day and
her to his heart lovingly, reverently, as
ofold, and in his love he would cleanse her
of her stains. He never thought how
time would have treated her. He looked
for the golden hair, the fair flower-face,
the sweet, shy smile of the early days !;
and once, when he gave a grey-haired,
haggard, broken-down beggar-woman
half a. crown in the street, he did not
know why she touched his heart so sadly,
or why she woke chord that vibrated in
remembrance, but that had no echo in
recognition.
At last, one bitter winters night, he
| uleu. lie Hdu WdHutTCu TeSlltSSly All unc
day, feeling so near and yet so far off, as il
her form was walking with him side by
side, step for step, as he paced the long
streets fer hours but he could not see her
face, nor touch her hand, nor hear hel
voice. When the night fell he crept back
to his miserable home, once more disap
pointed and his mission unfulfilled. His
heart broke at last; and when they came
to rouse him in the morning, he was
dead.
AS they laid the poor worn body
straight and fair for its last rest, they
found suspended round his neck locke
in which was long tress of golden hair
a date, monogram, and For ever" un
derneath. And when a wretched beggar
woman died of drink and privation in ;
police-cell, that same winter, they fount
on her, too, wrapped in a worn bit of pa
per that had once been pink and stamped
in gold; short, crisp, chestnut curl, ant
Walter" with the same date as hi
written within; while trembling hand
of evidently later days, had scrawled il
unsteady characters across, "My onl.
real love. God bless him !"-London So
cietu for February.