The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-06-22

note, written in a moment of softness,
when the wish to recall certain angry !
words she had said to Jim was strong
upon her, she grew sick with shame. |
She had held out her hand in reconcile
alton and he had not taken it. Would |
anything make a woman more indig- |
nant? After that she never even looked |
at him.
Old Mrs. Wadsworth, having kept
Jim's letter few days, felt that too
much explanation would be necessary
were she to give it to him after so long
a time. Besides, it would be we'll for
her son that he should not see it. He
would, of course, marry his cousin Mi
randa-Only a second cousin-a girl she
liked, and would never set herself
against her mother-in-law; girl who
did not, like poor Nellie, look aggravat-
ingly stylish.
But Jim did not marry Miranda. No
one will ever know now whether Mi
randa would have accepted him or not.
After time she married Mr.. Wise
man, who was better off than Jim, and
old enough to be her father.
And Nellie, too, married. While her
heart burnt with resentment against
her old lover, she chose a new one, a
dark, moody, silent sort of man, who
carried her away to the city, whence
there came rumors now and then that
she was not happy-then her husband
led a wild life. Once some one declared
that he was a very madman in his jeal-
ousy, and locked her in her room at
times. But no one knew whether it
was true or not. Her parents would
not say anything about her.
AS for James Wadsworth, he had
gone to church to see her married, and
had gone home with a headache. The
next day he was delirious. A brain
| fever had set in and the doctors shook
their heads over him. What he said
in his delirium only his mother under
stood, but if she could have undone the
deed that she had done, she would have
thanked heaven.
For weeks he lay at deaths door, and
then pale shadow crept about the
house, the wreck of the bright, hand
some James WadsWorth. His beauty
was gone, and no one felt quite sure
about his mind. He answered sensibly
enough when he was spoken to, but
voluntarily he never spoke. After a
while he felt we'll enough to do farm
work, and did what his mother sug-
gested, and she grew used to his altered
ways.
And so matters rested when, ten years
from her wedding day, Nellie came
back to her fathers home in a widows s
cap. And the people of Kornhill learnt
that her husband was dead, and begun
to wonder whether he left her money.
Jim, blowing in the adjoining field,
saw her as she sat upon the old home
stead porch and stood for a moment
staring at her. Then he left his plow
in the furrow, his horses standing where
they were, and went home. His mother
saw him coming. He tramped over the
beds of vegetables and trod down the
young corn. He sought no path. AS
the bee flies, he sought the doorway at
which his mother stood staring at him,
and walked into the kitchen past her
without look.
"Jim, my boy" said the woman,
"what is it ?n
He made her no answer, but went to
his room and straight to bed. For hours
he never spoke to her. Then he began
to babble. He uttered Nellie's name.
He reproached her with Inconsistency.
He called her tender names in the one
breath and cursed her in the next. Then
he gave one wild cry and sprang up in
bed and then dropped back agaiu, with
his eyes staring toward heaven. He
was dead. The mother knew that be-
fore they told her so.
The next day a coffin stood in the
low-ceiled parlor, and in it lay a pale
statue with closed eyes, all that was
left of James Wadsworth.
One by one the friends and neighbors
came softly in to look at him, and went
away more softly, often in tears.
AT last came one woman-a fair wom-
an in a widows cap and veil-who stood
longer than the rest looking at the still,
white face, and, at her own request, was
left alone with it, while curious people
in the outer room wondered whether it
was true that Nellie and Jim were once
engaged and hadguarreled-for this was
Nellie, in her widows weeds, who had
come to look at Jim for the last time.
And as she stood there, with her
thoughts for which there are no words
trooping through her mind, an inner
door opened, and an old woman crept
in.
1t was Mrs. Wadsworth, broken down
|, at last, and with the strange, restless
. light of an unsettled intellect in her
/ light blue eyes.
, She held an old letter in her hand,
and it rustled as she slowly crossed the
room and stood beside the coffin.
} "Jim," she said, "here's your letter.
T've been thinking it over, and since
you take it so hard, you'd better have
! it; only kept it for your own good,
} Jim. She amt the girl for yOu-but
, you take it so hard. Wake up, jim,
here's your letter."
But the white, frozen hands lay still
upon the chest, and other small living
woman's hands grasped it instead.
: 'Nellie knew her letter, Jim," she
whispered, 30, Jim, Jimw and she laid
it softly under the white flowers upon
his bosom, and STOPPING, kissed the
waxen hands and brow, 10, Jim, Jim, j"
she said again, and let her black veil
down over her face, and went her way.
} And the gossips who stared after her
as she passed down the village street
wondered again if she had ever been en-
gagged to Jim Wadsworth. But none OF
them ever knew. The grave keeps its
J secret. So also does a woman's heart.
AGENTS FOR THE NEW NORTHUFST