Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1878-05-10

All, lb WOuluu Hlllt bult W
trust TO that pleasant perhaps.
" You ought not to suspect your chill
dren of being less generous than your
self"
But their mother must have been
ungenerous first, you see."
"You have Anson to think of, Hitty,
in this affair, as well as Tom. If you
| don't love Tom better
al DON'T don't; but the will has
made it impossible for me to marry An
son with clear conscience-tO marry
him and be happy. If he were sure of
earning a fortune, with which we could
make amends to little Tom, it would be
| different. But | cannot count upon
such an improbable contingency. AS
you say, Tom will have his head and
hands to push his way, but the best
head and the busiest hands do not al
ways compel fortune; and, if any harm
should come to him from want of capi-
| tai, if he should be tempted to sin from
| lack of money, II should have to an
swer for it; it would be my guilt
Nonsense, Hitty; your conscience is
too tender. Marry Anson and trust to
Fate, that's my advice. Supposing you
refuse, and he marrics somebody else,
and--little Tom doesn't live to grow
upN'
81 shall not have wronged him.
"But you will have wronged Anson."
mot if he-if he marries-another.n y
Many would, perhaps, approve Hitty
| Thorne's conduct at this crisis, more
would condemn; but she walked ac-
: cording to her light in those cruel days.
| 1t was no easy task she had set herself.
| She was to receive no need for her sac
rifce except self-approval-nothing
but reproaches. Could she have seen
all that would happen she might have
spared herself this cruelty. And how
much can happen in this time! how
much to make our wisest forethoughts
assume the aspect of improvidences!
| Property changes hands, values shrink,
children grow up with wills of their
own, people die and make room for re-
mote heirs, or they outlive the sharp
edge of sorrow and anger, and learn to
! bear the burden of their mistakes. Miss
| Hitty had faded in the meantime, while
Anson Searle wore his years like gar
| lands. The fortune of which her "not
| impossible children might have robbed
! little Tom had dwindled to the merest
pittance through the knavery of the
man to whose wisdom it had been in
! trusted while Anson Searle had uneX-
pectedly stepped into the possession of
the Searle estate, with its old stone
mansion, its orchards and outlying
meadow-lands, and the income that had
been rolling up since the SearIes first
set foot upon Plymouth Rock. Twenty
years before there had been no shadow
of such possibility, no dream of it in
Anson's mind or another's. Two
healthy lives had barred the way against
him, but Death had effected breach.
"What u mistake Hitty Thorne
NADER people had commented these
half-dozen years. "She might have
been mistress at Searle Hill if she'd had
mind to risk marrying poor man.
Folks get their come-up once in this
world sometimes with the usual char
ity commentators bestow upon the mo-
tives of others. Nobody had known
the true cause of Hitty's refusal to mar
ry Searle. 1t had been the town talk,
to be sure-a riddle which no one had
solved. She had not even coniided her
reasons to her lover. He would over
rule them, she feared, would call them
absurd, and only make her task more
difficult, and perhaps grow to hate lit
tie Tom-and some time Tom might
need his good will; who could tellP
Anson Searle had not borne his dismiss
sal with the fortitude of an early mar
Tyr, but he had sworn he wUuld never
ask her twice to marry him, and he had
kept his word But perhaps after his
anger cooled, and he watched her sad
dening year by year, some surmise that
her behavior had not been dictated by
caprice or any petty motive grew upon
him, and obliged him to render her the
tardy justice of appreciation. And a
pretty return Tom had made her-spec-
ulating with his employers money, and
! threatening the family pride with dis.
grace. Unless five thousand dollars
were forthcoming there was only Il fort.
night between him and ruin. And Tom
was only twenty-five. They must save
him. Miss Hitty was one to stand by
her guns; where there was will there
was way, and she followed the only
way she knew. If Mr.. Searle, fumb.
ling about for the reasons of Hitty's
conduct toward himself, had at length
stumbled upon the clew-having an in,
innate knowledge of her fathers will
already-and if he had not been quite
heroic enough to forgive her for prefer.
ring Tom welfare to his own, he must
have found n grim satisfaction in the
TURN that fate had ordered, III seelns
the Thorne property shrinking from
day to day, till there was hardly enough
to butter their bread-till it was plair
that Hitty's sacrifice had been fol
naught. But when did ever sacrific,
prove futileP Though it fail of its di
rect purpose, does it not enrich tht
soul not only of the one who sacrifices
but of all beholdersP
1t was near twilight of an autumn
day that Miss Hitty put on her worr
bonnet and went slowly, with certain
reluctance, up the hill toward the Searl,
mansion; she pulled the brazen knocke
timidly, and stepped into the house tha
/ might have been her own like any beg
gar. The dead Searles looked dow
from the walls of the oaken hall will
, cold questionings in their pursuing
eyes; in the great drawing-room thu
wood fire snapped with a good will
and glinted gayly upon bronze and or
molu, upon the quaint mirrors set il
garnets, upon the yellow ivory keys o
the old piano. Arson Searle rose t.
receive his guest with flush of sur
prise.
: "Is it-you - HittyP" he cried
4" TOnF'
"Yes. You did not expect me?n
Expect you! No. Have l reasol
to expect youPn
"We sometimes expect without
reason. / have come-eXpecting yol
to grant me a favor"
" A favor?n
, "Y Yes. 1t strikes you oddly that
should be brought to beg favor o
, you, does it notP But there is no Othe
= friend upon whom can make even s.
: shadowy a claim as upon you. Do yol
think / would ask anything of on
whom have served so so ill-if / Wer