Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1875-02-19
IOWA, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1875.

persuasion-oh! it is as sinful to urge
as to compel. Let me 60 free, and
your life will be blessed"
''Comc, come, don't be childish
don't be vacillating. I'll be good to
you, darling-you know l will-re-
member your VOW"
''You keep me bound against heart
and will:" she asked, imploringly.
He thought of Chandler Morcton
and of his own selfishness. -
eyes, I'm iron in my resolves
Think what q release for you would
cost me-despair, misery! l would
plunge down into dissipation faster
than any fiendw The man was ac-
tually feigning tears. "Amy, Amyw
he cried. "Have mercy! l cannot
relinquish my prizer'
"Yo on can find hundreds better than
mew
But he loudly replied:
"Not so-yOu are one of a mill
ion!'
AS the clock sounded eleven strokes
he left her, with lovers most pas
sionate outburst of speech resound-
ing in her ears.
Oh, how her heart yearned for
Chandler Moreton. And he, too,
was becoming restless, for he doubted
not the truth of the clutch in which
Amy was bound. He wrote long,
loving appeals, and handed them,
with what money he could collect,
(hc was not rich,) to the postman,
the Irish servant woman, the coach
man; he even hired a boy to deliver
parcels directed to Amy with his
missives carefully tucked inside
But it takes thief to catch thief;
the sly Chandler was outwitted by
the more sly Dick; every line Of SEN
timent written to his beloved girl
was perused by Mrs. Stanton or Dick,
and how the latter exulted!
Woman's ingenuity is often more
successful than mans. In secret
Amy had written to Chandler, con
fiding her great dispair; and one at-
ternoon, when the hair-dresser was
summoned to arrange Amy's hair for
a large evening supper, the latter
slipped her tiny, dainty envelope un-
seen into the woman's hands, with a
plea spoken in French that touched
the heart of the bearer.
There was to be full dress party
the following evening which Amy
wrote Chandler not to fail to attend.
He did so. Though Dick was exact
ing, he could not, in the presence of
vast, gay assembly, plausibly deny
his betrothed just one dance with her
old lover. Words that burn were
hurriedly exchanged between them
"A speedy elopement proje tied,
which the schencrs did not for Il mo-
ment dream was to prove inetfica-
cious. Like weary prisoner, Amy
was watched and barred and bolted
from all sides. The taunts of the
new mother were becoming more un-
bearable; the father, who, in former
days had opened his arms to protect
her, now turned away with knitted
brow, in cold, intractable silence.
The wedding-day Dick had APP
appointed was nearer and nearer at
hand. Poor Amy necessarily crav-
ed a broken engagement, but with
three against her naught could avail.
The intense sorrow Of mind and
heart often overcame her weak, bodi-
ly frame, and for weeks our beauti-
tul heroine lay very i'll. DR. Bruce,
the physician who had attended her
when babe, and who watched at
the bedside of her dying mother,
positively forbade any person save
the nurse to come near the nervous,
emaclated, fevcrish patient. The
doctor was warm-hearted and benign,
and somehow didn't like the decided,
austere ways of the new Mrs. Stan
ton. He had riddle in his mind
which he was hourly endeavoring to
solve.
81 have it," the good old man III
wardly calculated, briskly rubbing
the palms Of his hands. ''The city
is not fit place for inyalids. Amy
must be taken to our home in the
suburbs. There the air blows fresh
er, holier, uncontaminatcd." And
the flame of goodness in the old
mans eyes frightened rs he pictured
the sweet girls quickening smiles
and restoration to health.
The doctor was 4 man with brief
but concise manner of speaking, and
he quickly made known to Captain
Stanton the very imperative demand
for the patients removal to changed
quarters.
The doctors home was spacious
and comfortable, the doctors wife 4
perfect counterpart of himself in
goodness and aiming efforts for the
best. Amy grew better and better,
but Dick Peters was kept in total ig-
norance of her state. With the ut
most impatience he drove to the doc
tors door many times; but either the
invalid had fallen into deep slum-
Der, or she was too weak to be per-
mitted to see any one.
A man with the slightest keenness
of insight, especially an able physi-
clan, who has visited families and ia
ken inventories Of humanlty's trail-
ties, could not help divining Amy's
sad story, even though she had never
breathed it to him. She had never
spoken derogativeIy of her new moth
er or of Dick Peters; yet the good
old doctor rightly interpreted the
change that had taken such strong
hold of the bright, beautiful Amy
since she came beneath his roof
She was happier, now-tar happi-
er.
Ere long she was able to sit up in
an easy chair in the family sitting
room. Stoddard Bruce, the doctors
only child, had just graduated from
college, and was studying medicine
at home with his father. For hours
of an afternoon or evening he would
read aloud to his parents and the
sick girl, and somehow, when he clio
sed the book, he looked up at the in
valid, and cared more for her say
ings aud Judgment than his other au-
d;tors At times. if Amy ONLY