The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-01-27

the head of the family; and once, in q
new neighborhood, the butcher alluded
to "my wife," 1 found out that he
meant my mother, and only wondered
that it was not dear old grannie.
She was eighty, grandfather ninety,
and they died one bright autumn day,
before prosperity came to us, died with
in an hour of each other-for grannie
Just said "I think I'll lie down bit,
now Lemuel don't need me. I'm very
tired"
Then she kissed me, and said
"You've been o good boy to your grand
pa, Edward. You'll have that to think
Of"
And when next we looked at her she
was dead, with her cheek upon her hand
like a sleeping child.
So two were gone, and we were sadder
than before. And then Jean, my eldest
sister, married at sixteen a physician,
who carried her off to Hindostan in her
| honeymoon.
And we could none of us feel the we'd
ding happy thing.
But prosperity did come at last. /
had worked hard for it, and anything a
man makes his sole object in this life he
| IS very sure TO attain.
We were comfortable All,
what word that is after years of strug-
gle At last we were rich. But by that
time was five-and-forty-a large, dark,
middle-aged man, with a face that looked
to myself in the glass as though it were
perpetually intent on figures. The girls
were married. Dick had taken to the
sea, and we saw him once year or so,
and Ashton was at home with mother
and myself-the only really handsome
member of our family, and just two-and-
twenty. And it was on his birthday, l
remember, that that letter came to me
| from poor Hunter-the letter which be-
gan "When these lines reach you, Ned
Sanford, 1 shall have my six feet of earth
= all I ever owned or would if had
| lived to be hundred"
We had been young together, though
he was really older than L /; and we had
been close friends once, but rowing
fit had seized him, and we had not met
for years. I knew he had married a
young Kentish girl, and knew no more
but now he told me that she was dead,
and that his death would leave daugh-
ter an orphan.
"She is not quite penniless," he
wrote for her mother had little in
come, which, poor as was, was never
brute enough to meddle with, and it has
descended to her. But have been q
rolling stone, gathering no moss, all my
| life, ,.s;ad we never staid long enough in
one place TO uruiAO s.io,. dc. WIN 5rou 10
her guardian it is dying mans last
| request -
And then he wrote some words.
coming from his heart, knew, which,
being of myself, l cannot quote even
here-I could not think that 1 deserved
them.
And the result of that letter, and of
another from the lawyer who had Annie
Hunters little fortune in charge, was
that one soft spring day found me on
board of steamer which lay at rest af-
ter her voyage in the protecting arms of
Liverpool, with two little hands in mine,
and pair of great brown eyes lifted to
my face, and a sweet voice choked with
sobs saying something of "poor papa"
and of how much he had spoken of me,
and Of the lovely voyage, and the green
graves left behind and J.. who had gone
to meet child and found woman,
looking at her and feeling toward her as
L had never looked upon nor felt to any
other.
Not to Elsie Hall. 1t was not the
boyish love dream come again.
Analysing the emotion, found only a
great longing to protect and comfort
her-to guard her from every pain and
i'll /; and L said to myself "Ihis is as a
father must feel to daughter I can be
a parent to George Hunters child in
every truth" And 1 took her home to
the old house and to my old mother. 1
thought only of those; somehow, I
never thought of Ashton.
Shall ever forget how she brighten
ed the somber rooms How, as her
sadness wore away, she sang to us in
the twilight How strangely some
thing which made the return home, and
the long hours of the evening seem so
much brighter than they had ever been
before, stole into my life never went
to sleep in church now; 1 kept awake to
look at Olive Hunter-to listen to her
pure contralto as she joined in the sing
ing. Sometimes caught her eye, her
great unfathomable brown eye. for she
had habit Of looking at me. Was she
wondering how face could be so stern
and grim 1 used to ask myself.
Ashton used to look at her also. He
had been away when she first came to
us, and when he returned she was a
grand surprise to him.
ooh, how lovely she is |" he had said
to me. ...
"She is very pretty" replied.
Ashton laughed.
2" May | never be an old bachelor if it
brings me to calling such girl very
pretty" he said; and felt conscious
that my cheek flushed, and felt angry
that he should have spoken of me thus,
though never cared before.
They liked each other very much
those two young things. They were
together a great deal. A pretty picture
they made in the Venetian window in
the sunset. He a fair-headed, blue
eyed, Saxon looking youth; she SO ex-
exquisitely dark and glowing.
Every one liked her. Even my old
clerk, Stephen Hadley, used to say her
presence lit the Office more than a dozen
lamps, the nearest approach toa poetical
speech Of which old Stephen was ever
known to be guilty; and never knew
how much she was to me until one even
ng, when, coming home earlier than
usual, saw in that Venetian window
where Ashton and Olive had made SO
many pleasant pictures for me, one that
never forget-that never shall for
get as long as l live.
She stood with her back to me. Ash
on was kneeling at her feet. The sound
'f the opening door dissolved the pic