Litchfield enquirer., 1875-01-28

I OAO SOuACCs tO HID OWA Wa4GAOtA&@s l miserly and reticent in the extreme, ! Stoneport had not divined his riches until l the son. now forty five years old. suddens ly emerged from the bondage in which he had been held by his stern parent while living to assume the role of millionaire. Hence the astonishment of the town; hence Hiram's love of display.
 In Mrs. Bamber's shop the two women grew rigid as the sleigh passed, the wid- ow with indignation, and the young school l mistress with curious admixture of envy and repulsion Had she not been urged, nay, almost threatened in all that she held dearest-her plighted troth to Charley Platt to share the sleigh with it's feecy robes? Might she not save the Platt homestead, indeed, by paying this very priceof mar rying Hiram briggs? Mrs. Bamber took her hands.
 Charlotte. let us go to this man, and beg him to release them" she said, earn | estly. ''You must have influence with hlm'' l
 '1 am afraid to go,' said Charlotte. Afraid! When you are to be Charley s l wife? We must fight for him, my dear, !" These two champions saw the sins of Mir. Driggs in the light of intense parti- sanship. He was mean man, and the power of money would naturally make him tyrannical; moreover, he had selected Charlotte Eaton to fall in love with as the sweetest and most blooming young lady in Stoneport. Hiram Driggs could cer- tainly afford to please himself at lastl Un- versed in the delicate phrases of romance, he could by no means win smile from Charlotte, and discovered in wrath and consternation that Charley Platt was his 1 koH- session of the house. Stoneport saw in of the man who wished to establish home, while the victims detected revenge. Probably both factions were wrong.
 Mrs. Bamber, with trembling Charlotte by her side, presented herself before the tyrant. He still dwelt in the wing of the warehouse where his father had been con- tented to abide. Perhaps he was chagrin- ed to be found in the small parlor, which he had furnished with yellow stain curtains and sofas, when he would so soon take possession of the house on the hill. The mission was scarcely a successful one, al- though Mrs. Bamber made herself spokes- woman on the occasion with all possible energy. She even offered up her shop, since Dr. Platt had given it originally. and was laughed at for her pains. Mir. Hiram Driggs was not a pleasant man to ask for favors. especially when he came quite close to Charlotte, and said, harshly, ''You know my terms"
 After that Mrs Bamber drew her com panion away without another word.
 'He is brute," said the little woman, tingling with modification at the remem- brance of the coarse laugh which had greeted her proposal of yielding up her all
 They met young man at the corner of the street.
 ''Take care of her," said Mrs. Bamber, transferring Charlotte to his charge.
 'M y dear Mrs. Bamber, I do not need the injunction" said Charley Platt, Ill voice he strove to render steady and cheer full, as he drew the girls hand through his arm with an air of tender protection. Charlotte and Mrs. Bamber looked at each other meaningly; then the latter turned away with a little pang at her heart. These two were made for each other. handsome but how,would it be with them if evil in the shape of Hiram Driggs stepped be- tween? When she reached her own door Mrs Bamber was not only disturbed and distressed, as she had been all day, but thoroughly out of temper. She would have liked to set the world to rights, and had only succeeded in ruffiing her own ana- our 10rOpre in the interview with brus- que, rude millionaire. Perhaps 1t was this mood that made her shake her head at the three pictures in her window.
 "Oh, there you arei I only wish l could recover the sum your frames cost me. Old masters, forsOothr' -r
 The pictures were small and dark, as if some shadow obscured their original meaning, even as brambles and moss might have overgrown the artists Brave. The sun shot a golden arrow in the win dow as Mrs. Bamber paused. and illumi- mated the dim canvas. Perhaps the radi- ance of revelation reached her soul in that glimpse, however faintly, the gleam of an angels wing cleaving the sky, the wonder of the Virgins uptnrned face; but the sunset faded, and Mrs. Bamber was left to solrowful contemplation of the garish frames. ''Some papist trash," she soliloquized. Whatever possessed me to get 'em new frames! I shall never see the money back, I'll be bound! I'm sure I would be thankful to get twenty-five dollars apiece, allowing twenty for the frames; and suppose the pictures gre worth five. if they amount to any thing. Nobody will give that, though. :" .l.s
 A year before the shop bell had brought Mrs. Bamber from her supper to the con- temptation of thin, cadayerous stranger of the brigand type. wrapped in 8 cloak, and with a broad hat drawn over his brows- The man was faint with crld, and coughed dolefully; he had no money, and To friends. Mrs. Bamber was not the per- son to send away such q waif empty hand o1 Oho v11aNo1 hSv-, 1><,f0vo kI,n Err |, own tiny kitchen, and made Nancy, her small handmaiden, serve hlm with hot tea; she wrote note to the clergyman, who dispensed charity, to find lodging: and she finally dispatched him with bottle of Bamber's Drops as a gift. The stranger fingered in the garret furnished him, reserved, tride sinister, and only known to smile when Mrs. Bamber preach ed to him in language which he but im- perfectly understood. e-- q
 There came day in rude March, when so many leaves drop from the tree of life, that the foreigner sent for Mrs. Bamber, bequeathing to her solemnly three small pictures set in carved wood
 ''They are worth their weight in gold, ' he had whispered, and turned his inscru- table faee-in which there fingered a triumph to the end-to the wall.
 Mrs. Bamber had shed few tears, and carried her gifts home cautiously, as if she held some explosive proiectile. The clergyman surveyed the pictures through his spectacles, and chilled the possessor's 8 enthusiasm somewhat by expressing pre- ference for engrayings. He recommended replacing the quaint olive-wood frames with new ones. and exposing them for sale in the window. Clergymen are not al- ways the best financial advisers. Mrs. Bamber's face grew very long when she saw the framer's bill Stoneport was skeptical of these daubs; besides, the vid- ow asked a fabulous price for them. Stoneport knew a chromo and a modern landscape full of lively coloring, but such dismal things were not to its taste. The last night of the year closed in sad ly. Mrs. Bamber sat long beside the Morning-giory stove in tho parlor back of the shop, slipping her tea, in which beyer- age alone lay consolation. 4 port ralt of Dr. Bamber, representing him as a