Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1874-05-09
A STORY OF MYSTERY AND WOE.

L
ton Smythe never lived. He was young
SAY twenty-five or three-full of a
large assortment of varied enthusiasms.
possessed of an unlimited belief in the
goodness of human nature, and abso-
lutel y incapable of falsehood
And yet, curiously enough, he had a
passion for mysteries. Although prac-
ticaliy a commonplace Presbyterian, he
nevertheless affected to believe in the
mysteries Of Rosicrncianism. He was
perpetually striving, with conspicuous
want of success, to magnetic his
friends, and although he was too ortho-
dox to believe in Spirtualism, he lived
IN constant hopes OF inducing his wash
stand to move and his writiug-table to
rap by the patient contact of his tire
less hands. AS for secret societies. they
were his delight. He belonged to near
ly every ancient and venerable order of
very modern mechanics and grocery
men i'll existence, and kept locked up
in hil trunk more Haring gilt badges
and Enthusiastically trimmed aprons and
horse-collars than would have sufficed
to purchase the sovereignty of dozen
African kingdoms.
d
and straightforward little girl than
Mary Morris, to whom Smythe was en-
gagged to be married. She was lust out
of hoarding-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 ef
assorted sexes, were ready to swear-or
affirm, IS the case might be-that Mary
was as good as gold and many times as
valuable.
The engagement of these two young
persons WAS with the full appreciation
of the elder Smythes and Morrises.
Young Pennington was expected to
spend three evenings every week with
his betrothed, and they We're always ac-
commodated with a convenient back
parlor III which to converse after the
manner of their kind in the So 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 Penniug-
ton made his appearance, Now, you
children keep out of that there back
parlor and give Mary and her young
man show was bitterly opposed to
the match, and must be kept from per-
ceivlng that his daughter was beloved
by her young man." But the only
possible way which he could devise to
throw an air of secresy over the affair
was to write notes to his beloved in a
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 con-
tanned nothing but an amplitication OF
the lnnocuous idea that he, Pennington
Smythe, proposed to love her, Mary
Morris, IN spite of every obstacle. As
there We're no conceivable obstacles, this
statement was not one of tremendous
moment; but still it gave young Smytht
no little comfort to make it in writing
and deliver it with an air of immense
secresy.
One day happy thought struck him
How delightful it would be to CORE
spond with his darling in cipher. 1hi
idea filled him with u calm and mystica
IVY tiittV was ically IL uTSt-cluSS S&lS3
ton. SO he devised a cipher of til,
kind So much in vogue among school
girls, aud which consisted in substitut
ing one letter for another, and instantl,
wrote brief note to Mary. This h
carried to her the same evening, to
gether with key, and attained tn
seventh heaven of mystical delight il
transmitting it to her.
Poor Mary suffered much from thi
cipher. 1t was very hard work for he
to write an Ineligible letter with tn
new aihabe5. She continually mad
mistakes in 1t, and so kept Pennington
out of his bed for hours, while, wit
locked doors and shaded windows, h
tried 10 decipher some such sentence as
" do so loug to see you" 1t was onl
when mistakes were made in the use q
this cipher that it became at all Difficult
of comprehension to an ordinary reader
Poor Pennington had hot devoted niue
attention otho subiectof cryptograph,
or he would have known that there
nothing more transparent than a ciphe
which merely consists of the substitu
tion Of one letter for another. He was
however, soon to learn this fact in Il yer
unpleasa ant way.
One evening Mary dropped n not
which she had received by mail, and