Connecticut western news., 1875-03-26

Yet, if the truth were told, the zest Tagged sometimes, and she was begin ming to find it just little stupid. It seemed, in recollection, as if those must have been halcyon days when she had no servants to make life burden, and the house was not full of creatures whose in- science was only equaled by their ignor- ance, who stole and smashed and kept her in ferment. More than once she caught herself thinking how pleasant it would be to feel the old exultation and get the old praise at having made both ends meet in some unexpected way how | pleasant it would seem again to be darn i ing stockings on one side of the fire in the long evenings, while her husband read his books on the other, instead of putting herself into the hands of her torturing French maid and going out for the night. Yet that French maid had made Mrs. Matthews an adept in all the toilette arts. She knew how to tinge her lips a slight bright cherry, though it forbade the same lips to kisses :; she knew how to give her cheek a soft pow dery bloom, how to blondiline the stray locks about her brow, and give that brow an air of innocence. and ya@th. Some times she thought it didn't pay. She L U 1 all in fact, he hardly seemed to look at her. He was absorbed in his thoughts, in his papers, his business people, from him muttering figures in his dreams. He was all the time taking little journeys, that he called business errands, by him self he didn't listen to her he told her I not to bother him he gave her short an- | ho axra,, horro,, 1o f checks; something seemed to worry him. She didn't know but it haddbeen pleas anter when they were poor.}l L.ae .i ll ! It was the night, at last, of the great ball. The silver mine and its surround ings had turned the quiet town into one of almost as reckless revelry as if there were genii and afrites to answer every wish. Was there not, indeed, the great slave of the earth down that pit Every room in the Matthews place was resplendent with light and fragrant with flowers. ., Exotics that had been brought all the way from St. Louis, and even more distant cities, by the decorators, F made bowers of halls and stairways. In the punch-room there were fountains ! flowing from unseen sources, which Mrs. Matthews had seen the French cook him  | The table sparkled with gold and silver, and each portion of the country had con tfibHted it's separate dainty. Everybody | would say, as everybody had said, how royalty, how perfectly, Mrs. Matthews could entertain And then her costume! While it seemed deferentially to give [ precedence to that of every guest-or else, as Mrs. Matthews knew by expert ence, there would be fine chapter of back kbiting--it was more darkly splendid than words can tell. It was, black net over black satin, and in every mesh of the net drop of jet sparkled; bandeaux of jet in the bright hair met over the forehead in that diamond star, brilliant | as Hesper, and her diamond necklace glittered between rowsof jet again. She was the impersonation of frosty, star | lit night, 8 shadow at one glance, a dag gle at the next. Mr. Matthews breathed hard as he saw her come down where he ' paced the rooms alone before the as- sembling of the guests. He went up to her and kissed her. He seldom did so now. "Yes, you do justice to it all, he said. If it had lasted long enough for me to get to the Senate, what figure you'd have made ! I'm glad 1 we've had it, if it's only to have seen ] you tonight You are magnificent woman. " ,E-. ... ..... .f ag.% VI .....
 "Dear me, MT. Matthews she said, readjusting her diamonds, 'haye you just found that out ?''
 "Well, how do, you like it, on the whole-this magnifcence?" said he, still "I don't know she answered.
 Sometimes, if you'll believe tits ab- surd-I like, the old way best!'
 "What if I had news of a great dis aster to tell you, that we had to go back you like to hear it now or after the ball ?'.s.. .s.f .. ..s--o. ...-. ....,
 "'Oh, now!" she responded, gayly. E'sThen I should have the ball to break the blow, and keep my thoughts from it till was used to it, you see. /" ~-+. s- ~
 "Very we'll, then, here it is. The silver mine has gone up." a4
 "Gone up!" al .... st.r .t. "Come to an end. It's no mine at all merely bit of drift, 8 piece of the
 deposit of some old ripping and tearing
 glacier.
 "What do you ean9"
 "While it lasted it was good silver.
 
 has come to an end"
 : Mrs. Matthews caught at the back ot
 Q chair, and grew so white that the deli cate bloom, immovable on check anG chin, looked like angry stings. '' You are jesting," she said ''I mean it, and much worse We have known this for some time. Wehavt been running it at large. risk, in hopes to strike another deposit. At least they have. wanted to own up and pay uI while we could"
 "While we could ?" she gasped. " Yes. It was Q stock company, yor
 see, and the company was never incor porated, and we are personally respon sible for all debts. "
 } "Well!" "--
 "The payment of those debts vii sweep everything plate on that table the horses in the stable, the lace in you drawers, the diamonds on your throat l everything. As nearly as I can reckon it will leave us nothing but the ittl l house in the lane, and @ mortgage o1 l that."1 a '!s
 "One of these diamonds would pa, : the mortgage, she said, after asnoment l. half suspiciously, half defantly. Can T I save it?"
 g Nothing ! nothing Tho littl
 house is all. I forgot it when we wer t so flush" ss% -4 e els it empty2'' I ... n "Yes." ...s .-.....,
 h There was brief silence as they stoo :. facing each other; and then, to MI T Matthews amazement, his wife laughed e What a pity we didn't buy the Vree E E land place in my name r. Are you goin It to reproach me about it2'' .r e 5. Reproach you? It was my folly. e felt liko tho shoemaker, who was mad