The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1874-11-19
KENOsHA, WISCONSIN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 49, 1874.

day, and saw her 90 she lay like q dead
thing In my arms. Aud fancy painted other
pictures. | saw her as Tom Armstrong;
wife. saw her-oh, good heavens, with
her children on her knee
am not sure but that should have turn
ed idiot, had not something happened to
alter the circumstances Of my position
This was nothing else than the total wreck
| Of our vessel, and my narrow escape from
drowning but With my arm broken by the
fall Of spar. For month lay on a sick
bed and then with softened heart. and q
| feeling that was sick Of the sea, I went
home to see sister Jennie, snd be a farmer
again, if could.
In these two years she had never had a
line from me. Not an angry word did she
give me bat ran in my arms aid wept on
my boson like a child and then she showed
me the wedding ring on her finger, and th~
baby lying asleep In the cradle, and told
me whose wife she w.s.
| She was MIS- Tom Armstrong. apd I had
never guessed they liked each other.
"And I'm as happy as the day is long"
she said, ''oniy fretting about you. How
could you stay away so. Ned II you did
not think OF my feelings, you might have
remembe ed Nellie Brodie's."
"Nellie Brode's feelings ?" cried. "Nel.
lie Brodie's! Don't laugh st me, Jennie"
Laugh at you ?" she cried. "Laugh al
VOC, my dear haven't a thought of it.
J Did you quarrel that night? 1t must have
been a quarrel think. Whose fault was it
yours or hers?"
"Aiss Brode and I never had a quarrel"
I said.
"Oh, Ned" she murmured softly, Don't
try to hide it frcm me, when I saw your por.
trait in her bosom. I told you so, | know
and thought it was all settled and was &c
glad"
l started mp and caught Jennie's wrist.
my portrait p I cried.
why, Ned, don't look at me So" screamed
Jennie what does it Ell mean? Your Dor.
trait of course, one of those Photographs
you had taken. I found the rest after you
went away. Oh, Ned, don't look so, dear /"
Il thought you told me she wore another
mans picture" l said. That drove me
away, that nothing else Oh, what a
wretched fool l've been (; l did not know she
had my picture and I might have cast her
away l, who loved her so, and have pinned
/ for her all these years ~
But, Jennie, dear jennie, with her lind
motherIy lace and loving woman's eyes,
came close to me, and put her arms about
my neck, and whispered, Don't despair,
J Ned. She has never liked any one else, and
I know, for certain, that she wears your
picture still.''
And those words brought my youth back
to me and the years seemed blotted out
! and I was the Ned Brown who fell in love
! with Nellie Brodie, once more
Well, Jennie told the truth went to see
Nellie Brodie, and found her sweet and
beautiful as ever but we were married
when the spring came and the birds began ia
build their nests in the green orchard. After
wards, when she had been my wife for some
time, Nellie told me, Ter those very apple
trees, how she had found my picture one day
when no one saw her, and worn it afterwards
TO-: love of me-Worn it and wept over it
while was far away, trying to forget her
trying, but never succeeding, for the love
had for Nellie Brodie was part of my life,
| and will be. believe, part OF the eternity,
where, when death sewers US here, we shall
be reunited.