The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1873-05-29

she did not question 1t.
4 The Puritan blood in her veins ran
with powerful repression, which was not
unlike repose.
4 When she sat, at dead of night, shiver-
ing ut her window,to watch the sick light
! burning and waning in Azrsel's room;
VIII, she stretched her arms out to it III
lthe black, chill air, thinking weakly how
Azrael's life was burning and waning
wlththe tiny spark when she went down
into the gray morning, waiting for
chance word Of the dying mans condi
lion. watching for q chance stir about the
A0use which Acid bin. Shrinking when
they said. ''He suffers" faint with trying
to thank God when they said He rests"
compsllsd to exhaust the ysarling her
cxlled heat to ward his III foolish jelly
that she made him, IN = pale, proper, use.
ess H,wer thatshe sent, she did not think
that fate bad treased her unkindly 20 She
said: It is the sovereign will of God"
Rachel had heard great deal about the
sovereignty of God; not much about his
tenderness. IF His awful presence held a
ich c,,n passion Tor q woman who must
10 maidenly.' Tor SouGhAmpton's sake,
though Azrsel lay dying il was daring
!1Rcy; He had maay things TO occupy
His great eternal taought. How could 1T
be? Once her young life rebeled with
All its might against this Thought.
| 1t was rriny night and very dark
Azraei Craven had been worse all day, in
nuc1 distress aud weakness. Her mother
had given her TO understand this with
sone reluctance, and sat her come house
I'hnld task, Rachel hought, 10 asoid any
| further cotnni.nt ON the facts. When |
th,s was finished Rachel slipped away
And 0us of tho back door into the little |
dripping ard. She found the house too
strait for her. she could not breathe
She felt benumbed. The ache in her
heart rEn, an actual pain, all up and down
her feverish young limbs. She threw her
shawl over her head, gathered her dress
skirt wrong side ont over her shoulders,
SHE could not afford to poll it because
Azrael Was DYING, and su ran about tor
- !Itt.e while Ia o purpos1less, half-blind
| way, I'd And fr" over tue wet chips and
rubbish, with tho wind anil rain upon her
Timidlv and on tptoe she wandered
street, and across tO Azrael's aunt. The |
SICh -LaulR Was VIC CuiE liEub GlS HOuSS
held, and that burned brightly, striking
u slender, lesg hsft Of gold across the
SLATED fence and down upon the dripping
grass aud little pools OF water III the
road. Tn Rachel, skuikiag like q crimi-
mai in the shadow. it looked like the
beautiful ladder on which Of old angels |
ascended and descended out Of heaven.
Her hear: climbed up it's shlnihg height
with a sudden, daring, wifely sense OF
right to turn the whole world out, and
munster TO Azraeps meanest wants. She
felt shut Out-dOwn there in the storm
and dark-like a soul in hell.
A soul in hell-or so to R4chels excited
amt uu7stLr4l fancy it seemed just then
fitted past her down he street, while
shs stood crsuching thsrs beside the
slated fence. The light of the golden
ladder which clined to Azrae!'s room
strack full upon its haggard face. RA.
chel knew sthe face, and shrank she wen
To school with he poor girl once. She
WAS a gentle pretty girl. When her baby
WAS born the people that she lived with |
turned her off. She had wor ked in a
shop since that, and lived decent life |
enou, b, some said; but no one spoke to
her, and the baby died. Rsehel han
sometimes wondered, ia a shocked, dim
way, what life was like to her.
Now, as the vision of her fitted by, a
throb of awful envy fitted in Rachels
pure young heart. This woman had dar-
ed TO sin for loves sake. While She
She fed with her head hanging, her
hands before her face, as if she had been
guilty woman; fled from the shining
ladder, where the angels would not walk;
home, into q dark, still room, where she |
dropped upon her knees.
It is said that when the early autumn
chills came on. upon MINDLESS, moonllt
night, little after the village clock
strucl. 3, Rachel Fross walked her mother,
sleeping by her side, with an exceeding
great and bitter cry:
Mother, she said, "Azrael is dead y
Something IN that cry chilled all the
placid, proper Brad ford blood of Patience
Fross. She sprang trembling up. The
room was lighted with mellow light,
like the opening of flowers in the sun
the shadows of a partly leafess tree fell
in and lay motionless OH the bed. Rach
ell was standing in the middle of tue
room, in her white night-dress, with the
moonlight on her full and solemn.
"You are dreaming, Rachel"
I Mrs. Fross, quite herself again, rose in
the stately Bradford way, and drew her
daughter back to bed.
"Mr. Craven was better this morning
than he has been for q week. You have
been dreaming. Go to sleep.my dear,and
do not think about it. 1t annoys me, Why,
r tchel Why, Rachel
Rachel sat just where her mother had
placed her, straight before her | one hand
fell over the beds edge
"But mother she said. "Azrael is dead. |