Connecticut western news., 1877-04-20

she was full of tender sympathy, she was eminently practical, and with clear, fore ible words she made him realize fully how unworthy was the idol he had worshiped.
 With her own personal property she had also brought Gilbert's from their old home, and she took house in New York, where they both soon felt at home, returning no more to Fern Nook. Then, with true practical kindness she persuaded Gilbert to allow her to buy him partnership in a light business, and reused him from his dreamy, sensitive moods, to active, na- tural life.
 He might have become soured and hard, but for the love of this old maid, who had never before let him read the tenderness of her heart. But, while he suffered keenly, his manhood developed, 7, and he was stronger, better man for his disappointment.
 When Myra's name ceased to be a torture, Aunt Jane made herself known to old friends ofher girlhood, and gath cred about her a pleasant, social circle, where Gilbert was soon a favorite. There was no hint of the spinster's hope when she said very quietly:
 'sAny attention you can pay to Ella Rayburn, will be very pleasing to me, Gilbert. Her mother has been my warm est friend ill past years. and we have re- newed the old times most pleasantly. If Ella is like her mother she is pure, sweet, unselfish woman."
 ''And Ella was like her mother, and was soon taken into Aunt Jane's closest intimacy.
 Still smarting under the past pain, Gilbert was merely attentive to his aunt's young friend, and not yet realiz- ing that reality filling his old idea was near him.
 And while these old residents of Fern Nook were quietly gathering up broken threads of life, to weave more perfect web of content, Myra Gorham was eat of an old, indulgent husband, ready to humor every whim, to give her idola- trous devotion, she found herself tled to querulous invalid, who had been accustomed to the unquestioning obe- dience and devotion of his daughter and grandson, and who exacted a similar care from his reluctant wife. In place of balls, concerts and operas, the gay life of the metropolis, Mrs. Gorham found herself shut up in a country house, certainly sufficiently handsome and well appointed to meet the most fastidious taste, but lonely beyond en- durance to the woman miles away from her own friends, and coldly ignored by the friends of the Gorhams, fully aware of her mercenary treachery. -....-
 Yet she endured 1t as patiently as possible, till the old man, pining for Jane and Gilbert, sickened and failed visibly.
 It was when all hope was gone, that the young wife cautiously but very plainly urged the necessity of making will. It seemed to her as if all the misery of life concentrated in the peev- ish reply:
 'tI have nothing to will. All the property belongs to Jane! Ionly hold a life lease on my late wife's estates. "
 "Janel" gasped Myra, remembering the insulting terms in which she had intimated to that spinster that she pre- ferred to reign alone at Fern Nook.
 Certainly! If Gilbert's father had lived he would have shared in the prop erty, but it all reverts to Gilbert if Jane dies unmarried"
 All Gilbert's and might have been all hers.
 Myra felt too stunned and miserable even to cryl To think that all her base scheming, her feigned devotion had led her only to this, the beggared widow ot an old man.
 But after the funeral was over Mrs. Gorham made few discoveries. First, all the deep black of her dress, with the fine white line of her widows cap, the sombre crape and soft snowy tarletan were most becoming to her brilliant blonde beauty. She studied her dress to its minutest detail, and when it was perfect, formed her new plans. In her late husbands desk she found five thousand dollars which she appropria- ted, leaving Miss Jane and Gilbert, who came to the funeral, to defray all the expenses. She accepted Miss Gorham'i offer of the use of the house for year and when she was left in possession un' scrupulously sold many small but valu- able articles there.
 When the year was over, and Miss Jane Gorham once more opened hel house to her friends, she was mute with consternation one day when a carriage heavily laden with baggage, drove uI to her door, from which aiighted hel fathers widow, who threw herself into her arms, sobblng:
 "Do not send me away. I am dying in the gloomy seclusion of my deal husbands home. Let me stay witf you!' -... '.@ '..-..
 She stayed, of course. Miss Jane' old-fashioned notions of hospitality were too strong to permit her to turn { guest away, even if uninvited and un welcome. But she smiled grimly to se' how Gilbert's face fell at the announce ment of the visitor.
 ''She is my fathers widow" th' spinster said gravely. "So we mus endure her for a time.''
 She was a most fascinating widow when she appeared at the late dinner in thin black dress, all jet and trim ming, with some knots of black ribbol in the profusion of her golden curls Her color was softly tinted as ever her blue eyes as babyish and winsome yet, when the first evening was over sh knew she had gained nothing in he