The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1877-05-15
A NIGHT OF SURPRISES.
ONE DAY Frank came home, with q
" look Of triumph.

ne Shlu, In bne way OF uurSes Ooiaiu
Temple is going to take his family to
Europe, and when he heard what you
wanted offered to let us have their nurse
whom they will not want"
heard low sigh. Virginia, Franks
only sister, had been sitting in corner
of the drawing-room. She rose now and
slipped out.
How could you, Frank ?" 1 said fol
loving her with sad eyes. g have never
heard your sister speak of the Temples
since she has lived with us; the very
mention of their name brings back the
memory of Geralds brother, and all that
sad tragedy"
''I am sorry,'' said Frank, "but 1 did
not know that she was in the room. Poor
Virginia"
Yes Poor Virginia ~ said to my
self. But once the blithest, ,loveliest little
creature l ever knew. 1t is something
of story, but tits an tower true tale"
and will tell it in the shortest way
can.
Virginia and Frank were orphans, and
old Mrs. Chichester, their grandmother,
had adopted Virginia, almost from her
infancy. The old lady had very ambi-
tious hopes of making splendid match
for her beautiful grandchild. But Vir-
ginia thought otherwise; and when she
was just seventeen, at the time of my
wedding, she and Langley Temple were
insane enough to fall desperately in love
with each other. Langley was Franks
most intimate friend, and the pair met
continually at our house until grandma
Chichester found it out. After while
Langley was ordered to his ship, (he was
in the navy,) but Frank waged battle
with grandma until he obtained viper
ish consent that the lovers might CORES
pond. Grandma took pains not to let
Frank know how Virginia was torment
ed and tyrannized over, until the poor
child consented to go out into society
again and there she met, and made q
ready conquest of the very man whom
grandma had intended for her beauty
Horace Kent. Virginia refused him
but grandma said, scornfully, "that made
no difference. She would come to her
senses soon," and to my utter amaze
ment, the trousseau went on, and by
and-by we were hidden to the wedding
quiet, elegant affair, where Virginia
talked and walked as if she were frozen.
Frank and confessed to each other that
inht hot tho h,,af 1,auoaH
prehension, for we had no idea then of
foul play.
Kent and Virginia were to sail for Eu-
rope within fortnight of their marriage
and went to Washington and Baltimore
to pass that time. Left alone, one eve
ming in Baltimore, with severe head
ache, Virginia remembered to have seen
some aromatic vinegar in her husbands
dressing-case. Kent was peculiar in his
careful way of locking up his belongings
and she took her own bunch of keys to
open the box, when, rather to her sur
prise, she found the key left in the box.
Some listless, vague impulse, which she
could not afterwards account for,
prompted her to lift the upper tray, al
though she had found the vinegar al
ready. Underneath, to her surprise, she
found paper, and was about returning
the tray to its place, without further ex-
animation, when her eye was caught by
the words" My own Virginia." in q
dear, too well-known handwriting.
When Kent came back that night he
found his beautiful young wife senseless
upon the bed, with two letters crumpled
between her cold fingers. One, the last
letter that Langley had actually written
her; and the other, the base forgery, in
which he asked to be released from his
engagement. Kent was not at all bad.
He loved her madly, and you may be
sure that bis sore punishment began,
when, after the physicians had brought
her out of that death like swoon, the
first words that came to Virginia's lips,
in that strange, passionless tone, which
is far worse than anger, were, "Remem-
Der will never forgive you-'aever ?"
They came back to New York for a
single day; but Virginia saw no one but
her grandmother. The old lady, upon
her death bed ,raved of thatinterview, and
vainly implored Virginia's forgiveness
for urging Kent on to the treachery.
The newly welded pair sailed in the i'll
fated ship which took fire off the coast
of Nova Scotia, and whose name still
carries terror to many heart. Virginia
was one of the handful of survivors
her unhannv hnshand snnnht for her q