The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1878-11-07
A ROMANTIC STORY.

DOWSI, Oh OOIutINlilc, COLuiAAbtCO Ilt-
lay on the steps of his house on Rowe
Street, ends q personal history which
lad in it elements of romance as pow
srful as any thing ever Matched behind
he spectacIes of Wilkie Collins. Elab-
1rately worked up, it would furnish a
inc basis for novel in itself, or play
for theater languishing for something
besides French adaptations and Eng
fish classics. Many years ago Charles
r. Power was a sailor lad of II or Is
years. With only his youth and good
looks to advance his interests, he fell in
love with'a bright, attractive young wom-
an, whom he met Mt q social gathering
of the younger members of the Salem
Street Orthodox Church in this city.
Her name was Amelia, and she was the
only daughther and heiress of old DIR.
Hollis, well known in the North End,
and indeed throughout this whole neigh
borhood. The doctor was rich; the
rowing sutton was poor and without a
profession; but love smoothed out these
Miss Hollis fancied the
young mariner, and when he left Boston
in certain memorable month at the
age of 10, no prouder or happier NOR
tai ever breathed on this mundane plan
ct, for Amelia was his atiianced wife
and he was the first mate of Liver
pool packet, staunch and goodly YES
sci belonging to strong firm and en-
gagged in a profitable trade. This was
the time when hotels lined our wharf
streets, whose registers were never bare
of the names of guests; when sailors
boarding houses prospered at the
North End; when all over
our harbor foreign flags floated at
the peaks of trading vessels, and the
star-spangled banner could be found
similarly unfurled in every civilized
port of the then known world. There
were no quarrels over the American
registry of foreign iron bottoms, for it
was long prior TO the advent of Compel
ing lines of steamers, which have since
reduced the ocean to a ferry crossing
The voyage to Liverpool was long
and weary one, but the lovers conf
dence diminished the suspense he felt
His ship did not return Immediately,
but carried freight to various parts of
Europe. In the meantime he received
news from home. and learned that
Amena Hollis had given her hand to a
gentleman whose acquaintance, it was
said, she formed after Powers depart
ure. His grief and disappointment
nearly crushed him. He LETT the sea,
and for eight years led a wild sort of a
life on the continent, got into horrible
habits of dissipation, and probably per-
mitted his passions to reign unchecked.
After the lapse of this period of eight
years he Strengthened up, reformed his
ways and determined to be man. He
shipped on a vessel bound for Boston,
unable to resist the temptation of be-
holding the happiness of her who was
to have been his. On his arrival in this
city he went to his old home, visited all
his old haunts and was as nice and exem-
plary young man as you would meet
between this and East Boston. His old
associates gathered about him, and they
attended social entertainments and led
a gay life. She heard of him, but they
never met. Presently he grew restless
again; the old feeling gnawing at his
heart would not let him remain in Bos-
ton, and down to the sea he went
again. The "briny" was his home
after that He crossed and recrossed
the ocean, and in the course of a few
years left Boston as master of the good
ship Archer. Years and years went by.
This young man had become bronzed
and grizzled and spoke in a deep tone.
He was still captain of the Archer when
twenty-five years had elapsed since his
engagement with Amelia Hollis. One
day, while ne was at his lodgings in this
city, he received a letter in a wOman's
inviting him to meet her at
the store of Crosby & Lane at a certain
time. The letter was not signed. The
thought flashed upon him that it was
from his old love, who, in all these
twenty-five years he had not forgotten
The widest scene at sea had not dim
med her image in his heart, where he
still carr. ed it. He compared the hand
writing with that in the letters of auld
lang syne, and had his suspicious de-
veloped mo conviction. He visited the
store at the specified time, and there
met her for the first time since they
parted as lovers. After the greetings
were over, and they had talked of their
mutual experience during the quarter
of a century, the lady informed HIM that
she had been divorced from her hus-
band. What he learned at that inter-
view convinced him that she had always
loved him, and that her marriage was
not the result of any GOODNESS towards
him. Within three or four weeks of
this meeting they were married, and the
long delayed happiness of the Captain
was realized at last. They went to live
ut her fathers on Salem Street, but sub
removed to Rowe Street,
The lady was then the
mother of two grown young people,
son and a daughter. The Captain had
abandoned the sea at his wife's urgent
request and was without an occupation
except that which the management of
some property he owned in Colorado
supplied him with. Finally the Doctor
lied and left large sum of money to
MS daughter. The Captains family
circle was for some time after this a
happy one, but the want of settled oc-
at last produced its invariable
effects upon him, and shadows began to
creep across the threshold of his COM
ortable home. The time came when
1 dreadful evil had to be acknowl
edged as forming a part of their
married life, and incompatibility of
emper compelled a separation. The
Captain went to Colorado, and spent
some weeks trying to drown his unhap-
oiness in the cares of property, but he
allied, and dissipation laid his bands
lpon him. He shook off the tempta
ion, however, after yielding to it for
,rief while, and, returning to the East,
after three months had pass
ID, to effect u reconciliation with his
wife. But the old evil again visited
he household, and after long and in
struggles to destroy its infu
nee, Mrs. Power suddenly left her hus-
,and and took up her residence with
Ter daughter, in Newton. Captain
lower at once fell into the deepest
a condition in which he re-
NAMED Internationally up to the period
# his death. He met his wife on the
treet some months ago, and endeay-