The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1877-07-25
THE EX.BACHELOR'S STORY.

Never shall forget the day Wallace
Haughton first told me he loved Mary
Vernon. Before that I thought other as
a sweet, angelic woman: but in that hour
I hated her.
Well, time wore away and brought me
balm. became an intimate visitor at
his house, and soon came to regard WAL
lace and his wife as one. They furnished
me a beautiful room and I went and came
as I listed. By-and-bye daughter was
born to them. They called her Alice be-
cause it was my favorite name.
Little Alice Haughton She was fra
gile, fairy thing, but exceedingly lovely.
1t was a grief to us-yes, at last even to
me, that Mary Haughton dropped from
the date of the birth of Alice. Some hid
den disease, whose germs had never
showed themselves above the surface be-
fore, fastened upon her vitals. So slowly
she faded that Wallace would not believe
ill her till one day when Alice was three
years old.
One week from that time, the hearse
stood at his door. From the moment
Mary died, did not see my friend shed
tear. His face was rigid, colorless-
awful in its calm.
His little daughter was taken to his
mothers home, and after while Wallace
broke up housekeeping and went there
too. Once more he was all mine. Day
after day sat with him read to him, nor
could I believe that brilliant complexion
that fierce rapidity of movement, of Ut
terance, presaged fatal disease. But so
Improved. At the end of five sad vet
happy years, my dearest friend, died,
leaving me the guardian of his little
daughter
Alice was more lovely than her child
hood had promised. Not strictly beauti-
full, but charming, fascinating. She loved
me very much, and when in year from
her fathers death she left me for school,
she wept on my neck, refusing to be com.
forted
Eight years from the very day that
Alice Haughton left me for school, I re-
ceived letter from her edged with black.
1t was not the first letter my ward had
sent, by any means-but the first missive
that bore tidings of death. It was ad-
dressed to me as her fathers dearest
friend. Her grandmother, she said, had
recently died; her two aunts had gone to
to the far West; she was about leaving
school; where should she go? I was her
guardian and had legal right to advise
with her: She longed to see some famil-
lar face, etc., etc. The letter did not
give her any pleasure. I knew what my
duty was, for on his dying-bed Walter
had confded his daughter to my care.
looked around my comfortable rooms.
[ did not want to have lmy quiet broken
up.
No, I said, resolutely;.I will find her
a good boarding place. So I wrote a
letter, sealed it, but did not send it. Her
words, in one artless line, haunted me.
II do SO long to see familiar face that
will remind me of my dear home-nv
dear father and mother in heaven.''
4" There is no use in being such a saw
age" said mentally, and then + tossed
the letter into the fire Git was in january,
and sent for Aunt NIFTY. She was a spare
person, with not the most pleasant face
in the world-but the face is not ALWAYS
an index of the heart.
II think some of having a young lady
here, Aunt Mitty," I said.
"Lor! are you going to get married?"
and her knitting needles fell as if para
lyzed.
ooh, no, not the least intention; you
need never ask that question I shall be
a bachelor all my days, and you shall
keep house for me, Aunt NIFTY. But you
know have spoken sometimes of nv
little ward, Miss Alice Haughton; she has
neither father nor mother. I must have
her here, I suppose ...
was called out of town on important
business on the day Of the expected ar
rival, and did not return till late in the
evening. was cold, cherries and weary,
and had almost forgotten that was to
meet anybody, when as was taking off
my cloak in the front hall, heard a LIGHT
footstep, and looking round beheld a
vision for which was but little pre-
pared. Dressed in black garments, pro-
fusion Of dark hair falling in clustering
curls from her temples, there stood
Alice; her dark eyes, so like her faith
er's, beaming, glowing with warm vel
come, her white hands outstretched to
greet me.
Why, Alice" exclaimed, forgetting
cold and fatigue, "can this be you, so tall!
so beautiful" a.. g. 4+g.., r
She blushed rosy red, smiled, returned
my salutation, and led the way into the
tca-room. Surely some magic had trans
formed it. I had always thought it cheer
ful, but now with that sweet presence,
from which some charm surely emanated,