Connecticut western news., 1877-04-27
HAN. CONN, FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1877.


 the ice between us, for we walked off together for several squares. As com- plained of severe pain in my eyes from he blow had received, my companion said, q hope, MT. Hume will pardon my recent rude persistence in my fancied engagement with our fair ac- quaintance, and let us be good friends out of sympathy for the denouement' As we are here at my hotel, let us enter and drink to the good fortune of MT. De Stultus.
 t'I gladly accepted the invitation, and we were engaged in pleasant conver- sation when loud noise was heard in the street, mingled with the cry of a woman in distress.
 Suddenly starting to our feet we rushed forward to render assistance. The first object that met our sight was Helen Van Horn, covered with mud, but happily more frightened than hurt. De Stultus was also in wretched plight, but too much engrossed, as might be expected from such creature, with his own mishap, to give the least attention to his associate in misfortune, whom he left to struggle to her feet unaided, and to make her way to the sidewalk, where her recent visitors met her, and where she hysterically ex- plained how a truck, against which De Stultus' carriage had been care lessly driven, had left them stranded in the muddy street, fortunately and marvelously. however, without broken bones.
 "Churchill called carriage and we escorted the wretched demoiselle back to her residence, at the door of which we congratulated her upon her lucky escape, and bid her 'good night
 ''My new friend then proposed that we should at once drive to the opera, where he hoped we might meet party of his friends, to whom he would be pleased to introduce me, and in whose society we would find surcease for our disap- pointments in regard to Miss Van Horn. I assented. Churchill's friends were met as he had promised, and among them were two beautiful sisters, so attractive that they speedily drove all thoughts of mere handsome girl, superficial and spoiled, like Helen Van Horn, out of the head of Churchill as well as my own. A charming evening at the opera ripened into serious attachment on the part of Churchill and myself for these sisters, which ended in our marriage, and no one ever had juster reason tor saying,
 There is g divinity that shapes ends | Rough hew them how we will'
 than l have! And how you know why I did not marry Miss Van Horn, and also now two men, for moment about to be made enemies through the reck' less, interruptions coquetry of an in ferior, heartless woman, by happy stroke of fortune became friends anC brothers.
 GAS for Helen Van Horn, she stil , lives in single blessedness, and upor the memory of her many conquests finding her chief qualification for som' years past in recounting the various eligible offers she had refused, includ ing always Churchill and myself among her rejected suitors. A heavy specula tion into which De Stultus had been be guiled about the time of Miss Var . Horns triple engagements for the sam' evening, resulted so disastrously fo him that her doors were at once rigidl, closed upon that admirer, who disap ) peared like a quenched meteor iron society. Meanwhile occurred the deatl 3 of old Mir. Van Horn, which, as hay , said, left the daughter no other attrac 3 tion than mere physical beauty, tha had now become so used that it cease' 7 to please marriageable men, and sh 5 was no longer able to make three en agreements for one evening. "Hers has indeed been life of los opportunities"