The Bloomfield times. [volume] (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1867-187?, 1874-08-18
JOSEPH HANNAFORD'S WIFE

N ESPONSIBILITY had come to JOS
1O eph Hannaford early in life, for he
was not more than sixteen when his father
died, and left his mother and his young
sister to his keeping. There was property
enough for them all, to be sure but it was
chiefly in land and stock, and needed JOS
eph's vigilant superintendent to make it
profitable. This superintendent he gave
faithfully and willingly, and never once
complained that to do SO forced him to re-
sign sundry secretly cherished personal am
bitions Of his own. But all this RESPONSE
bility wrought its own work upon his ma
ture-made him provident, thoughtful,
calculating, thrifty precisely an old young
man.
This state of things continued for ten
years. Then his sister married, and re-
moved to the next town. His mother de-
sired to accompany her, and was only
prevented by the difficulty which attended
obtaining a suitable housekeeper for JOS
eph.
You perceive, therefore, that at twenty
six Mr.. Joseph Hannaford was just in
position where marriage became convenient
and desirable. Otherwise, rather think,
he was quite too well disciplined to have
cherished any idle fancies or importuuate
longings.
Whether, before this epoch, he had ever
suffered any truant thoughts to wander in
the direction Of Miss Carrie Fay, who had
been growing towards her sweet woman
hood not very far away from his door,
cannot conjecture. l only know that
about this time he began to discover that
her eyes were blue, and her hair golden,
her cheeks were flower o. thepeach, and
her lips blossomed with sweetness which
he longed to taste. He told her these
things in some discreet fashion of his own,
and she-he was her first lover, and the
right of discovery has gone for a good deal
in all ages. aa '9t
Every one said he was making great
mistake. The neighbors thought they
knew what he wanted great deal better
than he himself did; and were sure that
good, strong, thrifty girl, used to working
and saving, would be just the one for
him. Carrie was pretty, and fanciful, and
dainty. She was an orphan but an uncle,
who had no children Of his own, had kept
her feeling from any sense of loneliness or
desolation by his constant and fatherly
kindness. Under his roof she had grown
up TO seventeen years, and at that period
the old young man came along, and wooed
and won her, a-,,.f..,...
Her uncle felt secretly uncomfortable,
for he understood just what Carrie was
better than any one else did and he knew
that it would be no easy matter to make a
working-bee out Of a golden-winged butter
fly. But on the other hand, Carrie was
evidently in love with her suitor; and Mr..
Hannaford was certainly well-to-do-quite
able to marry to please himself, and make
his wife comfortable in her own way after
wards.
So, ip due time, the wedding took place,
and Carrie Hannaford went away to her
new home, where, before very long, a
change came over the spirit OF her dream.
She had begun by first idealizing and
then adoring her lord and master. He
was, certainly, wel-looking, in kind of
regular massive way. His face had in it
not much suggestion of sentiment. His
eyes were clear and shrewd, though kind /;
and his lips were firm and rather thin.
He knew beauty when he saw it, but he
would never be ruled through his senses.
His features were well-shaped. There
was power in his face. He was man who
knew how to say no to himself and to
others. There was a manly vigor and
symmetry in his well-knit frame and, in
short, he possessed good many of the
attributes which go to the making up Of a