The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1878-06-06

elOpod with her muSlc-maSLef, ana mao
broken her fathers heart; and, when the
old gentleman died, he had LETT respect
able fortune, the interest for the benefit
of his two living daughters, the princi-
pal falling to their children; and only in
case Liddy and Kitty died without leav-
ing direct heirs could anything more
than the merest trife revert to poor lit
tie Tom. Hitty had been engaged to
| Arson Searle o year wnen old Mr..
Thorne shuf1ed off the mortal coil and
this unjust will came to light, and Searle
himself was at that time only young
lawyer wrestling with circumstances,
with no great amount of funds at his
command.
"And nothing for little Tom but this
paltry hundred dollars !" groaned Kitty,
when the will had been read and the es-
tate administered.
"Of course I shall never marry"
said Liddy, who was plain and old
looking for her years, and whose one
lover had Tilted her years ago, when the
bloom of youth, at least, had been hers.
There wasn't the smallest danger that
Liddy would threaten Toms interests by
marrying.
"No, you May never marry, Liddy, ;"
sighed her sister "hut II love An
on, and oh I love little Tom, too-my
little, motherless Tom! I cannot rob
him of his patrimony, and cannot live
without Arson. How can wrong Tom
to pleasure myself? What will he have
to go out into this hard world with, if
if"
"Hush, you silly girl; ne will have
his head and hands, like ether men and
then-you may never have any children
to stand in his way
"But how unhappy it would make
me to see them enriched at his expense !;
to see him earning his bread by the
sweat of his brow, while they Jared like
the lilies of the field to have Tom envy
and perhaps hate them, and feel bitter
that life had been rendered so much
easier for them by injustice p
perhaps they would share with
Tom"
"Ah, it wouldn't be quite safe to 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 Arson to think of, Kitty,
in this affair, as well as Tom. If you
don't love Tom better"
/" I 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 fortune, with which we could
make amends to little Tom, it would be
different. But I 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 CAPT.
tal-if he should be tempted to sin from
lack of money, II should have to answer
for it; it would be my guilt"
Nonsense, Kitty; your conscience is
too tender. Marry Arson and trust to
fate, that's my advice. Surprising you
refuse, and he marries somebody else,
and-ittle Tom doesn't live to grow
up?"
| L 6ud1l uOb Lave WIOuROu Hill.
"But you will have wronged Anson."
"Not if he-if he marries another"
Many would, perhaps, approve Hitty
| Thorne's conduct at this crisis, more
would condemn; but she walked accord
ing to her light in those cruel days. It
was 40 easy task she had set herself.
She was to receive no need for her sac
rifce, except self-approval- nothing but
reproaches. Gould 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
Kitty had faded in the meantime, while
Arson 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
w WAO0O WAoStOm udu O0Ou lubE uSUCQs
while Arson Searle had unexpectedly
stepped into the possession of the Searle
estate, with it's old stone mansion, its
orchards and outlying meadow-lands,
and the income that had been rolling up
since the Searles first set foot upon
Plymouth rock. Twenty years before
there had been no shadow of such a
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 mistake Kitty Thorne made!"
people commented these half dozen
years. "She might have been mistress
at Searle Hill if she'd had a mind to risk
marrying poor man. Folks get their
come-up once in this world sometimes, :"
with the usual charity commentators
bestow upon the motives of others. No
body had known the true cause of Kitty s
refusal to marry Searle. It had been
the town talk, to be sure-a riddle which