American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1878-05-11

Liddy and Hitty died without direct
heirs could any thing more than
the merest trifle revert to poor Tom.
Kitty had been engaged to Arson Searle
a year when old Mr.. Thorne shutiled 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 Hit
ty, when the will had been read and the
este.;e administered.j
"Of course, shall never marry"
said Liddy, who was plain and old-look-
ing 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 interest by mar
rying.
mo, you may never marry, Liddy,"
| sighed her sister; ''but II love An
son, and oh! love little Tom too-my
little motherless Tom! l can not rob
him of his patrimony, and can not 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; he will have
head and hands, like other 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!''
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.''
g" You have Arson to think of, Hitty,
in this affair, as well as Tom. If you
don't love Tom better"
"I don,t-I 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 1 can not 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 always
compel fortune; and, if any harm should
come to him from want of capital, if he
should be tempted to sin from lack of
money, IL 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-little Tom doesn't live to
grow up!"
al shall not have wronged him."
I" But you will have wronged Arson. :"
"Not if he-if he marries-another."
Many would, perhaps, approve Kitty
Thorne's conduct at this crisis, more
would condemn; but she walked accord
ing 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
rifice, 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
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 un-
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 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 a mistake Hitty Thorne
made!" people had commented these
half dozen years. She might have
been mistress at Searle Hill if she'd had
mind to risk marrying a 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 confided 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