Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-08-14
sat talking, there wassa charm about the

was not the rest he needed in the talk with
which he was being entertained, fair
sample of each evenings experience.
Knowing but little of her sex, he cues
toned if all women found pleasure in so
severely criticising their neighbors. He
had no sisters; his mother died when he
was boy, and boarding school, college,
and hotel life ill-served to show him wo-
man as she is when worthy of the name
she bears. John Lester had anticipated
having home. Had his ideal been too
beautiful? He had asked for wife. Had
he found the one he wanted?
The parsonage! And with the thought
of it he queried within himself if the
minister's modest little wife were season.
ing her husbands supper with comments
upon their parishioners. No; he was
sure not The night he sat up with Tony,
Mrs. Rogers had brought some jelly to the
sick man, and he was very certain that the
sweet voice which had comforted Eunice,
unconscious that any one heard it, could
never say i'll against another. With the
vision of the little woman came resolve
to be more of man than he ever had been
lie would not longer sit at his own table
and allow his neighbors to be slandered
when they were above reproach
Edith, how do you know that Mr.
Rogers bought the vase and bracket?
know it, my dear, with all possible
evidence one could want Why, right on
the table lay card with the words, For
my wife-GOd grant she may yet live
many years to save and bless others as she
has her husband Pretty, all that, but of
course it accompanied the vase; there
were the nails and hammer used in hang
N Or hn htsn ol- of I i
ing before it when Mrs. Rogers entered :;
elegant ornament in their room, she ex-
claimed, OH yes; and a birthday present
from some one whom | love very much
/ found it on my bureau this morning
Taking her seat, she spied the card and
picked it up to put in her pocket with a
blush which made her look almost hand
some for once. | do believe she was
ashamed to tell me plainly that Mr..
Rogers made the gift, and she ought to be
ashamed Yes, | say it exceeds anything
[ ever knew of in the line of eXtrava
gance!n
Certainly Mrs. Testers statement seem
ed most plausible, yet her husband grew
strangely interested in the minister's little
helpmeet during the recital, and the man
ly resolve in his heart to purify the tone
of his own wite's thoughts was thoroughly
rooted. In a firm but gentle voice he
replied:
Edith, till you k1a0oo that Mr.. Rogers
gave his wife the vase you have no right
to say he did. Imagination is one thing,
evidence another. 1t may be very appa-
rent to our acquaintance that you have all
woman could desire to make her life
happy; yet is it woman's highest pleas
ure to SANDER her brothers and sisters?
You resent the idea of having any intent
to SANDER, but already Mrs. Pratt has
listened to what you have told me, and
she has or will repeat the story in fuller
dress. | beg that tomorrow, instead of
spreading, you will try to check the evil
you may have done. If Mr. Rogers aid
give the vase he had his reasons for so do
ing, and it is none Of our business how
he spends his money. Unless | am mis-
taken, he and Mrs. Rogers will endeavor to
rid our village of this sin of gossip, and,
my wife, we VIII aid them all we cam
Mrs. Lester was subdued, if only by
the stand her husband had taken A wo-
man of no mean disposition, she had
merely succumbed to the custom Of the
society in which he moved, forgettul that
owing to the position she held, a word of
ton of others. Her husbands rebuke
had touched her, and for the first time in
her life she realized how deep an injury
she might do another by an unjust word.
All. the unjust word had been spoken
that day, and on the morrow, while Mrs.
Lester shopped in the city, the minister
wife received an unusual number of
callers.
Harry" she said, they all noticed my
vase and admired it so much. One lady
told me that antique was quite the style
now, and concluded my present must have
been very costly. 1t is beautiful, isn't it:
but not half so beautiful as the true love
that gave it to meI'
At that moment Mrs Lester drove up
to the gate, and through the open window
saw the minister with his arm around his
wife standing before the bracket. 1t
looked like another proof toward the
truth of her story; but recalling her hus-
bands words, she entered the parsonage
with more kindness in her heart than she
had ever carried there before.
Pm Just home from town, Mrs. Rogers,
and stopped to leave this small parcel
the fall goods were being opened, and
this is pretty shade that will suit YOU
and she did not wait for thanks
ooh! Harry dear! new dress. Now
you can do what you wished you could
this morning-get a chair for poor Teddy
Burns. I'm so glad! Why, it's like your
sermon on Sunday: All things working
together for good"
In the Lester home that night there
was happy change. Mr.. Lester wonder
ed why his wife was so tender in her
greeting, so softened in manner never
dreaming that his good deed was already
springing up; it had not been sown upon
| barren ground, but in soil that simply
needed cultivation
OH if man would oftener seek to rule
in love! if, finding us guilty of many
faults, he would try to lift us to nobler
ideal of womanhood instead of sneering
at our weaknesses, the result would prove
his effort to be grand one.
Oh! if woman, the true woman, seeing
in her sex this disposition to bicker, to
SANDER, would rprove by silence or
gentle rebuke, society would be
based upon a higher principle,
| the atmosphere of our homes would
be purer, and lives of mother, wife,
and daughter would breathe of the love
| that els kind and thinketh no evil
Mrs. Testers eyes were full when her
little one said at bed time, Mamma, singh
But the voice was too tremulous to lull
the child to rest with the customary song,
and she answered:
Birdie, you sing to-night-sing some
thing Mrs Rogers taught you in the Sun
day-school"
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