The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1874-05-01
A STORY OF MYSTERY AND WOE.

A more honest fellow than Pennington
Smythe never lived. He was young-say
twenty-five or three-full of a large assort-
ment of varied enthusiasms, possessed of an
unlimited belief in the goodness Of human
nature, and absolutely incapable of false
hood
And yet, curiously enough, he had pas
sion for mysteries. Although practically a
commonplace Presbyterian, he nevertheless
affected to believe in the mysteries of Rosi-
crucianism. He was perpetually striving,
with conspicuous want of success, to mag
netize his friends, and although he was too
orthodox to believe in Spiritualism, he lived
in constant hopes of inducing his washstand
TO move and his writing table to rap, by the
patient contact Of his tireless hands. As for
secret societies they were his delight. He
belonged to nearly every ancient and vene-
rable order of very modern mechanics and
grocerymen in existence, and kept locked up
in his trunk more faring gilt badges and
fantastically trimmed aprons, and horse-col-
lars than would have suffced to purchase the
sovereignty of dozen African kingdoms.
And there never was a more honest and
straightforward little girl than Mary Morris,
to whom Smythe was engaged to be married.
She was just out of boarding-school, and
her respectable father-in the wholesale lard
business-and her equally respectable mother
in the wholesale family business-and all
her thirteen brothers and sisters of assorted
sexes, were ready to swear-or affirm, as the
case might be-that Mary was as good as
gold, and many times as valuable.
The enga cement of these two young per-
sons was with the full appreciation of the
elder Smythes and Morrises. Young Penn
ington was expected to spend three evenings
every week with his betrothed, and they
were always accommodated with conven-
lent back-parlor in which to converse after
the manner of their kind. In these circum-
stances Pennington Smythe ought to have
been happy, but he was not. There was no
mystery about his love affair, and the fact
weighed upon his spirits.
He did what he could to convince himself
that the respectable old Mr.. Morris, who
used to say when Pennington made his ap-
pearance, ''Now, you children, keep out OF
hat there back parlor, and give Mary and
her Young man show was bitterly op-
posed to the match. and must be kept from
perceiving that his daughter was beloved by
her young man." But the only possible
way which he could devise to throw an air
of secrecy over the affair, was to write notes
to his beloved in very cramped hand, and
to deliver them himself. Usually he had to
read them, too, since his handwriting was
too mystical to be readily deciphered, and
when they were read they usually contained
nothing but IN amplifcation of the innocu-
Gus idea that he, Pennington Smythe, pro-
posed to love her, Mary Morris, in spite of
every obstacle. As there were no conceivable
obstacles this statement was not one of tre-
mendous moment but still it gave young
Smythe no little comfort TO make it in writ
ing and deliver it with an air Of immense
secrecy.
One day a happy thought struck him.
How delightful it would be to correspond
with his darling in cipher. This idea filled
him with a calm, mystical joy that was
really first-class sensation. So he devised
cipher of the kind so much in vogue
among schoolgirls, and which consisted IN
! substituting one letter for another, and in
| stantly wrote a brief note TO Mary. This
! he carried to her the same evening, together
with a key. and attained the seventh heaven
OF mystical delight in transmitting it to her.
Poor Mary suffered much from this cipher.
1t was very hard work for her TO write an
ineligible letter with the new alphabet.
She continually made mistakes in it, and SO
kept Pennington out Of his bed for hours,
while with locked doors and shaded windows
he tried to decipher some such sentence rs,
81 do 70 long to see you." II was ony
wien mistakes were mbde in the use Of this
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