Litchfield enquirer., 1878-05-02
LITCHFIELD, CONN. THURSDAY, MAY 2. 1878.

and it is recorded of h.r that though she was
 perfectly satisfied wit. the way she had played her own part in the genteel comedy, she would never have word of anything like censure applied to Hazelton. She showed herself to
 be without fear, and she declared him to be without reproach.
 s'How it might have been with her if she
 had been compelled to stay in the neighbor- hood don't know, but just at this juncture her father was appointed to post in large naval establishment in a garrison town. It was an awful place for her to be put in, but she went there radiant, and soon reigned as 1 Queen of the whole Brigade. She was just learning her power, and it came into play very prettily, as it seemed at first for she was not only young. but brighter, and fairer, and 1 truer, we all fancied, than any of the other l girls of the place. We admired her for the unconventional freedom of a manner that was always well bred, and for the lfearlessness that I led her tolet fellow see that shs liked him l and enjoyed winning his liking in return, WrGlry'sit esuy InUugHr ot marriage or huInbus
 in the business. In fact Kate Coningsby made
 herself our friend and comrade.
 s'fhere were four of us Assistant Surgeons
 on the establishment at the time, all young, I and all Irishmen into the bargain. I don't l think that it had ever occurred te Kate, who | IS an lrishweman, to pride herself very much | upon her nationality until she fell in with us. But liking us, and discovering with her sex's | unfailing instinct that we liked her equally well in return, she let the compatriotship pave the way to one of those delusive intimacies
 that begin in friendship safely enough, but
 that slide of into love before, you know where
 you are.
 ''She was so jolly and frank with us all, new
 CT playing one off against the other, or at
 tempting to make the one that might be pres ent with her believe that she preferred him to
 any one of the three who were absent, that the
 Irish team became proverb for its loyalty to her, and for the admirable way in which the four were One for all-all for one' I believe that we should have borne individual disap- pointment in the matter blithely enough, and rejoiced in the victor's success, if she had married anyone of the Irish team But before we had time to put it to the touch a Captain Lennox came to stay with his uncle, the Gov ernor of the place, and from the time his fig ure appeared on the canvass, we saw that the bonny Kate might might be comrade and friend still, but never more than that to anyone of us. '
 ''He was good-looking, tawny- -moustached fellow this Lennox, good type of the aristo- cratic Englishman and Kate didn't see in him at the time what the rest of us saw very clear lY-that he was rather inclined to fancy his position in the place, and give himself over bearing airs to the other men. The fact of 1t was that the curse of the Quarter-deck sys- tenn in the service pervaded the whole social atmosphere of the establishment to pernic- ious extent. And though Kate hadn't bit of
 it about her, and by virtue of her popularity was quite beyond it's influence, still she was blind to the fault she despised when it devel- in nd Ina pt ii1a her, and grew into kind of fellowship with him that separated her from us, her older friends, in great measure, and for the first time to call our old favorite a flirt.
 But there was no Irritation in the matter in reality. It came upon both the man and girl that they were very much in earnest as soon as his regiment got the route for India. She would have gone with him on his pay-for he had nothing else, poor fellow-gladly enough, and he would have taken her as gladly and if they had followed their own impulses Kate would have been happier woman this day, and Lennox might have been alive. But his friends pointed out the folly of it, and her friends pointed out the folly of it, and the end of it was that he went away without her.
 She wouldn't chow sign of the pain she felt to any one of her rivals in the place, who were watching for the evidence of weakness. But she told me just enough to convince me that her heart had gone with Lennox They had their parting on little tree shaded bridge that crosses stream that runs through one of the sweetest valleys in Kent, and he prom ised to come back and claim her in couple of years, and she promised to wait for him but there was no acknowledged bond between them, and it was decreed that they were not to correspond. You see' she said to me, Pve none of the honor, and importance, and glory of an engagement to sustain me, and I shant even have a letter all the while to remind me if begin to waver but if know myself at all, can wait for twenty years. And what ever may seem in reality I shall hold myself as much bound to Lennox as if I were married to him. And believed her then, and I be- lieve her now, for all that has come to pass since then"
 Jack paused for moment, and could see derly to the day when Kate Coningsby made him her confdant. ''Go on with the Lennox episode-for it was only an episode, I feel sure" said gently. Ut ended in some oth- CT woman coming between them, probably. I should never feel satisfied of the fidelity of any man who left me with such feeble bond between us. It ended in her being thrown over again, suppose :? Poor Kate '" ..
 'tlt ended in worse than that" Jack said sadly. And then be went on to tell me what follows
 tt CHAPTER II.
 ''There was very little smooth sailing for poor Kate after Lennox left," Jack went on; ''the women were always at her mother, tell ieg her what a pity it was that Kate should be wasting her time in thinking about man who had never proposed properly to her father for her, and who would be sure to forget her soon ; and some of the younger men from the garrison flattered the girl herself into making an exhibition of indifference, which she did not feel, towards her absent lover But she was high-couraged young creature in thoses days, and she trod the thorny path without even so much as showing that she felt the prickles. So she rode daily with her caval- cade of ill-mounted admirers, and danced with them two or three times week at the military balls and assemblies, and laughed my advice to scorn, when used to tell her that Lennox4 would hear of it, and not like it.
 .'' You know how much love him, Jack she would say to me, but if I adjured all the pomps and vanities, and turned myself into a cricket on the hearth during his absence, I shouldn't be the girl Lennox fell in love with by the time he came back. Don't you be frightened he trusts me as entirely as 1 trust him, and if 1 heard that he rode every morn AAS sAAO oohOSN OtC4 "itA PtCtt1SSt woman i'll the Presidency should only be glad that he had such good luck
 q It was while things were in this state that Captain Coningsby, her father, died and you know, or you don't know yet, Helen, how everything that has been real and substantial to the wife and family of an officer becomes unsubstantial and not to begrasped when they are transformed into his widow and orphans The change is from lively to severe with a vengeance in all cases, but never, perhaps, more thoroughly so than in the case of Kate Coningsby.
 "She bore it all like brick, we all felt that she did, for there seemed to us at the time something heroic in the way in which the poor child stood erect still, under the blow of leav- ing the handsome home, and parting with the pretty pony. We had seen other families turn out from the place under even sadder circumstances, but we all cursed the parsime- ny of service which awarded such niggard- ly pension to the mother of Kate Coningsby. But at that time she had the art of bearing every reverse beautifully, and she would have walked into a work house gracefully, I be- lieve t9