The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1873-04-24

ing sort of woman, my mother, in he
habit ofleaning to mercy's side.
s1nconsideratel Disgracefulp sale
my father.
"Yes, my dear Charles, very dis
graceful" said my mother; but
caught the same tone of appeal in hel
voice.
"Shameful! Ridiculous! Unheard
Of" My father was given to the
piling of epithets. FPitiable IN a.mar
Of his age!"
''He is old to marry" said my
mother. 9la ea
sOld! Only think of it. 1 am
sixty-seven, and he is not two years
younger" ~
II suppose he was very lonely"
"Why could he not come here, them
q "His business, my DEAR" said my
mother. 'G suppose he cannot leave
his Office in town for long"
"Why not have asked one of the
girls to go and live with him, if he
was lonely? Lonely nonsensel The
man has no more, feeling of loneliness,
or anything else, than dried stick.
Lonely"
'1t seems pity" said the gentle
voice of the gentlest of all gentle
women.
'FYou don't appreciate the case at
all, Mary! The old goosel So, moth
ing but marrying will serve his turn
and all out of spite, tool Well he is
bringing a fine lot of cares on his
shoulders, and SO he'll find. There's
an end to his quiet Life now. The
trouble OF WIFE Here my father
checked himself, seeing something
perhaps in my mothers face.
mo, Mary; I did mean that!
You know I did not. You and I have
pulled together without rub for FIVE
and-thirty years. Why, Polly, what
are you thinking OFF," She did not
speak, but I always thought my moth
er's smile was better than words. I
am sure my father thought SO too.
Her smile was known to us all, to be
the sunlight under which the sour
parts of his nature ripened to sweet.
'1wonder what she is like ?"queried
Tom, unluckily giving utterance to
the thought that was seething in our
girlish minds.
"Stuf, sir! What does it t'matter?"
said my father, effervescing again.
"a designing woman, no doubt: de-
signing women are all alike"
"She must be uncommonly sharp,
said Tom.
The moment my father left the Ia
BILE, our pent-up feelings had free play,
and we relieved ourselves by much
my mother playing the
part of moderator.
Il think your uncle has right to
please himself" she said, as she left
the room to attend to her household
duties. Perhaps he had. People are
not to be deprived of this right be-
cause they are old and rich, and have
a circle of nephews and nieces expect
ant of solid remembrances in their
wills. No, certainly not; but still it
cannot be denied but that this news
fell hardly on us; we had made sure,
you see. But I have not described
Uncle Jacob. This is easily done,
though, there being very little Of him
to describe. He was little man, not
over five feet six, certainly, with a
1.-THE, neat, small figure, surmounted
by rather long head. Uncle Jacob
was a ong-headed man in every sense
of the word. His features were hard
and small. His hands were hard and
small too; In fact, the second finger
Of the right hand, where the pen
leans, seemed turned to very bone,
He was my fathers only brother, and
had been sent out early in life, with
fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket,
to make his own way in the world,
when my father, as the eldest son,
had inherited the freehold farm we
live on.
With my father time had stood
still, so to speak; he was no richer
and no poorer now at sixty-seyen,
than he had been forty years before;
but things had been different with my
uncle. He might sit down at the ink
stand desk, in the little mouldy Office
in Mincing Lane, and take his hard
pen into those small, hard fingers of
his, and write his hard name in the
crabbedest of hands, and the cheque
he wrote it on, would be worth three
hundredand twenty thousand pounds.
So Mr.. Sneck, his clerk, would say
with triumphant look to his famil-
lars. As for Uncle Jacob, he never
spoke about the state of his affairs:
bis mind was tight and trim, and self
like himself.
Now, Uncle Jacob had never spok-
en- a word of leaving us a sixpence,
but we built our hopes on the circum-
stances of the case, and very reason
ably so, I think He had not single |
relation in the world outside our
house. He had always been kind to
us in his way, paying Toms schot-
bills, and sending my mother pres
ents of the quaintest ornaments that
could well be seen. He was really
fond of her, in his undemonstrative
way, and had told my father conf
1entially several times that she was