American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-11-01

wound up by signing himself, Your:
most sincerely Good God, what bias
pheiny y, Guy Scarsdale.'
And l, reading, wondered how He who
rules above could permit so utterly bast
and worthless a scoundrel to cumber the
ground; for if ever an honest man longeC
to take such a coward by the throat, anC
choke the wretched life out OF him, l die
that day. We put the letter behind tho
fire that same night. 1t was not wei
that, in the event of her recovery, Kate
Quincy should ever cast eyes on it again
She lay between life and death for many
weeks, hardly touching food, at times
fevered and wandering; or else lying hall
unconscious, or with closed eyes
and furrowed brow During all that time
/ never heard, even in her delirium, one
word o anger against the man who had
wronged her. All that ever reached our
ears was the first cry of agony, and now
and then the more pitiful reproach,
Guy, Guy, how could you? Oh, love,
how could you?'-nothing more, not one
word.
Before she was out of danger Mrs. Cur
ney broke down. Without her daughter
she was like feeble plant torn from its
| stick. Indeed, even l. who knew so well
Miss Gurney's quiet life of usefulness and
sympathy, failed to realize all she was to
| her weak and widowed mother, who hav-
| ing leant on her husband till, like too
many of our city clergymen, he dropped
and died in harness. worn out by inces-
SAINT toll, had since HIS death chung with
| like impotent trust to her daughter, and
! that prop also removed, had sunk at once
From the day when DR.. AIbatross told
her that in all human probability her
| daughter would never walk forth in Gods
! sunlight again, the helpless, harmless
woman broke down and faded away and
| the first thing that reused Miss Quincy to
the life still left her, was the cessation of
the alfchildish murmurs and wall
ings which had borne witness to the
mothers sorrow, and then the tidings
that removed from the room where quiet
was SO essential, she had taken to her
bed-to die.
Kate Quincy rose up from hers then,
and never left her parent till she had
kissed the trembling lips for the last time,
smoothed the pillow under the gray head,
and closed the sightless eyes in death.
Then when there was nothing more to do,
she went back to her couch, and never
left it again till two hours before she died.
OF course, we doctors called this filial
devotion utter madness, and asserted that
it had cut of the one faint hope that per
feet rest and freedom from agitation might
have given for her ultimate recovery. l
am not going into technicalitieS here; it
is enough that the long anxiety and
double shock had affected heart and
spine equally; and the dictum went forth
that, though she might live for years, SO
she mi ht die at any moment, and in
either case she could never walk abroad
again, never rise from bed or sofa in this
world.
l think see now the patient smile on
her wan face as she said:
Gods will be done. l suppose it is
for some good, since He wills it. l am
glad He has taken my mother into his
care, now mine is useless any more"
l wonder could any onlooker count up
the amount of good done by that help
less woman during the eighteen years
she Law on her sofa in the little parlor at
Caroline Place?
Fain would l have made her my wife,
when l thought the first sharpness of her
sorrow had come to wear off, but l
never got my prayer uttered. She di
vined what l was going to say, and stop
ped me by word whose exceeding gen.
tleness only added force to its decision.
1t was then l knew that her life was to be
sasred to the memory of the man who
was to have been her husband, and
whose desertion had made him dead to
her as though she were his widow in
deed.
The justice of this world generally re-
CARDS Tilted women with a sort of scorn-
full pity, nearly allied to contempt. Miss
Gurney's misfortune seemed to procure
her even a larger share of affectionate re-
spect than had ever been her lot.
Her couch was drawn into the window
where stood her work table and flower
stand, and where day after day she looked
out on the high dead wall of the Found
ling grounds, and the stunted trees grow
ing in the ratings outside it. When l
pitied her on the dullness of her prospect,
however, she only smiled and said:
"Why, / can watch the leaves bursting
into green, and turning to gold as the
year goes round, and l hear the birds
singing in the branches, and the laughter
of the children at play in the Founding
grounds. You must not abuse my win
dow, DIR. Elliott"
Also, when pressed to move her home
to pleasanter locality, she always gave
the same answer:
"All the happiness of my life has been
bound up in this little house. 1t would
be very ungrateful to leave it for another
because the happiness has gone away be-
fore me-" And SO Miss Quincy held her
ground from girlhood to womanhood,
never stirring. Wealth came to her
spent it freely on the poor who had so
long blessed her name; and the poor
came to her now that she could no longer
go to them; children to be taught, maid
ems to be counseled, widows to be COM
forted, orphans to be cared for-all came
TO Miss-Gurney, and went away happier
and better for her gentle ministration.
That little sofa in the window was the
Jordan where many Il destitute wretch
was healed from want and misery and sin.
Ay, sin, for none were too depraved or too
guilty to be reached by Miss Gurney's
mercy. The rector was her guide, her
prime minister; and between us, as the
years went on, we provided her with work
enough to do and to spare.
Sometimes | feared she was wearing
herself out; but one could not see the
white wistful face, and wasted form in its
long black dress, without feeling that any
work would be blessed which led her to
the home for which her bruised spirit
craved.
That home was reached at last.
Nearly twenty years had passed from
called to attend an invalid nobleman at
the West End He had been i'll for some
time; but a crisis in the disease had come
assistance to his noble patient.
The first day l went 1 was received by
a young and very pretty girl, whom l i'm
agined to be my patients daughter until
she introduced herself as Lady Scarsdale,
with Il merry littiy laugh at my mistake;
and then, though the name struck me
painfully, | never guessed at its belonging
To any one but some distant relation Of the |
young lieutenant of former days, till on |
being taken 10 the sufferers bedside, |
RECOGNIZED at once in the stern looking, |