The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1876-12-28

day, and / shall tell him SO T. And,
unfortunately, just as she was rately
brooding over these wrongs, her father
sent for her, that he might ascertain her
feelings in regard TO a proposition he
was inclined TO make Villa PROPOSE
ton to take him into business, allowing
him an interest now for his work and
oversight, and finally retiring in his IA
vor. Owing TO her mothers ill-health,
her father had fallen into the habit of
consulting Betty rather than disturb
the invalid, sufficiently occupied with
her ailments. f
sOh, father, father! You don't
mean that you ever thought of doing
such silly thing" cried Betty in free
disgust. "And when he posters me SO
I never should have another days peace
in my life. You might just as well put
me in prison, with spy and master
over me. Oh no, indeed Give him
anything, but send him away. Start
him in business in Australia, buy him
farm in the West, but don't, father, pray
don't keep him here .
And Betty's voice settled it. Mr.. Will
marth told his wife's young step-cousin
that he had changed his mind, and had
no place for him in his business, but
knew OF an opening, and would establish
him in it, in q Western city. sis it
Betty's wish e. said Will. And he re-
fused the prefer; and one evening,
catching Betty's hand, as he bid her
good by, and lifting it to his lips with o
kiss that burned in upsn it, he left the
place, and buried himself, unknown,
among the Southern mountains vita
some focks OF sheep.
One might suppose Betty would have
been satisfied then. Not she. She was
as restless as bird. Perhaps she
missed the pleasure of having VIII be-
hold her conquests; perhaps she missed
the adoring slave; perhaps she missed
the constant, tender service. A month
afterward, when Mr.. Valerino drew his
lessons to close, and betook himself to
other fields-yexing and notifying her,
it may be, but not grieving her a particle
she certainly missed the old friend
ship and sympathy, the kindness in
which she could conhde and with which
she could advise; and little Betty Will
martins black lashes were wet with tears
that she could not account for, and that
surely she never dreamed she should be
shedding because VIII Maunder was
away. She had reason, presently, to
niss that kindness to same purpose. Her
father was in that same year thrown
from his wagon; and he lay but partly
conscious for weeks afterward, and for
months he never left his room nor quite
recovered his intelligence. In those
weeks and months unfaithful clerks and
book-keepers enriched themselves and
impoverished Mr.. Wilmarth: and when
he finally recovered, it was to the wreck
OF what had once bid fair to become q
great fortune. "If Will Maunder had
been with me-" said Mr.. Wilmarth,
60 strangers and hounds would have had
no chance to fleece mo -
1t was true. Betty heard it with a
shiver. She had thought as much many
a time, yet had put the thought away
but now, her father declaring it so
seemed to make the fact sure. And why
was not Will with her father? For no
reason but that she had in reality driven
him away. Then they owed all their
misfortunes to her headstrong folly! If
Will Maunder-noble, patient, forgiv-
ing, honest, VIII Maunder-had been in
her fathers business, this disaster would
never have overtaken it; her father
would not be beginning life over again
in his old age her mother need not
have relinquished her nurse her sisters
would not be dependent on a distant
relative for the charity of their receipted
school bills she herself would not be
cramped and pinched, turning old
clothes, warming old food, doing the
work that servants in plenty had always
done for her before listening still to
these tiresone lovers, that did not for
sake her beauty because poverty had
joined their throng.
If crying would have brought him
back, Will Maunder could have sailed to
Betty on flood of tears but, tears
being useless, Betty scorned to shed
them. She had no idea where he was,
except for the vague rumor that spoke
of him as sheep raising somewhere in
the Carolinas. II she had, having sent
him off in her prosperity, she could not
call him back in her calamity. So she
braced herself to bear her trials as she
might, and to bear them, as she some
times said to herself, in a way Will
would have approved and she laughed
bitterly at herself to think of the senti-
mental idiot she had been, and of the in
nocent young italian on whom she had
poured out the burden OF her vain fan
cies; and her clear, dark cheeks red
dened redder than their wont at thought
of the light in which the clear-headed
Will must have held her infatuation.
Betty's cheeks, though, had never
lost their carnation she was no older
than before, so far as her beauty was
concerned only into her radiant face
there had stolen new expression, per-
haps called out by the necessity Of so
much tenderness toward her sick father
and disconsolate mother, perhaps by the
longing for once-neglected presence,
II