San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1878-05-18

spared herself this cruelty. ana now
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 Ansen Searle wore his years like
garlands. 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
intrusted, while Arson Searle had I'M
expectedly stepped into the possession
of the Searle estate, with its old stone
mansion, its orchards and outlaying
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 a breach.
"What a mistake Hitty Thorne
made!" people had 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 char
ity commentators bestow upon the mo-
tives of others. Nobody had known the
true cause of Hitty's refusal 10 marry
Searle. 1t had been the town-talk, to
be sure-a riddle which no one had
solved. She had not even conided 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 goodwill; who could tell?
Arson Searle had not borne his dis
missal with the fortitude of an early
martyr, but he had sworn he would new
er ask her twice to marry him, and he
had kept his word. But perhaps after
his anger cooled, and he watched her
saddening year by year, some surmise
that her behavior had not been dictated
by caprice or any petty motive grew up
on him, and obliged him to render her
the tardy justice of appreciation. And
a pretty return Tom had made her
specializing with his employers money,
and threatening the family pride with
disgrace. Unless $4,000 were forth
coming, there was only fortnight be-
tween him and ruin. And Tom was
only 22. They must save him. Miss
Hitty was one to stand by her guns !;
where there was will there was a
way, and she followed the only
way she knew. If Mr.. Searle,
fumbling about for the reasons of
Hitty's conduct toward himself, had at
length stumbled upon the clew-having
an intimate knowledge of her fathers
will already-and if he had not been
quite heroic enough to forgive her for
preferring Toms welfare to his own, he
must have found grim satisfaction in
the turn that Fate had ordered, in see
ing the Thorne property shrinking day
by day, till there was hardly enough to
butter their bread-till it was plain that
Hitty's sacrifice had been for naught.
But when did ever sacrifice prove futile?
Though it fail of its direct purpose, does
it not enrich the soul not only of the one
who sacrifices, hut of all beholdersP
1t was near twilight of an autumn day
that Miss Kitty put on her worn bonnet
and went slowly, with certain reluc.
lance, up the hill toward the Searle
mansion she pulled the brazen knockel
timidly, and stepped into the house that
might have been her own like any beg
gar. The dead Searles looked down
from the walls of the oaken hall with
cold questionings in their pursuing eyes
in the great drawing-room the wood fire
snapped with good will, and glinted
, gayly upon bronze and ormolu, upon
| the quaint mirrors set in garnets, upon
) the yellow ivory keys of the piano. An
son Searle rose to receive his guest witt
flush of surprise.
; ais it-you-Hitty?" he cried
"You?"
, "Yes. Did you not expect me?"