The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1878-06-07

grown with her growth and strengthened
with her strength. Toms mother had
eloped with her music-master, and had
broken her fathers heart; and, when the
old gentleman died, he had lett a 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 a year wnen old MIR.
Thorne shuffied 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 shall never marry"
said Iiddy, 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 ! 1 love little Tom, too-my
little, motherless Toni / cannot rob
him of his patrimony, and | cannot live
without Arson. How can l 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 ~
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" -.-
81 DON'T don't; but the will has
i, made it impossible for me to marry An
son with a 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 cannot count upon
1 such an improbable contingency. AS
you say, Tom will have his head and
y hands to push his way, but the bes,
head and the busiest hands do not al
? ways compel fortune and, if any harm
should come to him from want of CAPT.
4 tal-if he should be tempted to sin from
I. lack of money, -Ishould have to answer
a for it; it would be my guilt"
e "Nonsense, Kitty; your conscience is
r too tender. Marry Arson and trust to
J fate, that's my advice. Surprising you
L refuse, and he marries somebody else,
v and-httle Tom doesn't live to grow
= up?"
r ct shall not have wronged him."
o "But you will have wronged Arson.
n "Not if he-if he marries-another.'
8 Many would, perhaps, approve Kitty
Thorne's conduct at this crisis, more
8 would condemn; but she walked accord
: ing to her light in those cruel days. II
: was 40 easy task she had set herself
@ She was to receive no need for her sac
4 rifice, except self-approval-nothing but
reproaches. Gould she have seen al
4 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
e assume the aspect of appropriateness
Property changes hands, values shrink
F.! children grow up with wills of theil
= own, people die and make room for re-
4 mote heirs, or they outlive the SHARP
] edge of sorrow and anger, and learn tC
b bear the burden of their mistakes. Miss
/ Kitty had faded in the meantime, while
d .Anson Searle wore his years like gar
n lands. The fortune of which her "no
t impossible children might have robbed
. little Tom had dwindled to the merest
pittance through the knavery of the mar
e to whose wisdom it had been intIusted
r while Arson Searle had unexpectedly
stepped into the possession of the Searlt
n estate, with its old stone mansion, its
s orchards and outlying meadow-lands
t and the income that had been rolling uI
: since the Searles first set foot upor
y Plymouth rock. Twenty years before
r there had been no shadow of such
: possibility, no dream of it in Anson'i
b mind or another's. Two healthy lives
r had barred the way against him, bu
y Death had effected breach.
"What mistake Hitty Thorne made!'
Is people commented these half dozer
r years. "She might have been mistress
}, at Searle Hill if she'd had mind to risl
e marrying poor man. Folks get then
d come-up once in this world sometimes,
+? with the usual charity commentators
g bestow upon the motives of others. No
o body had known the true cause of Kitty,
e refusal to marry Searle. 1t had been
-? the town talk, to be sure-a riddle which
o no one had solved. She had not ever
d confded her reasons to her lover. L.,
would override them, she feared, woulC
8 call them absurd, and only make hcl
d task more difficult, and perhaps grow tC