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

me btlll. IlOW COuiu hhoV Vh"e "o
be bestP" and Miss Hitty, pacing the long
room with head bent, paused at the case
ment, and saw the sunset reddening up
on Searle Hill, and touching the window
panes into jewelry. The twenty years
of happiness which might have fallen
to her share up yonder had proved
twenty years of silent endurance
merely. She had watched the seasons
as they passed over the Hill with an in
terest which she had hoped would die,
but which had only strengthened with
the years-the lovely dallying OF the
spring-time, the summers overflow of
bloom, the splendor that autumn wears,
the white magnificence borrowed from
winter. If, twenty years ago, Hitty had
loved Arson Searle well enough to die
for Him, if need be, she had loved little
Tom well enough to renouncc happi-
ness and children and love for his sake,
and to live on through the barren, hope
less days without murmur. Tom had
come to her arms q forlorn and helpless
two-year-old baby, without father or
mother, when Kitty was eighteen, and
her love had grown with her growth
and strengthened with her strength.
Toms mother had eloped with her
music-master, and had broken her ia
theirs heart; and when the old gentle
man died, he had left respectable for
tune, the interest for the benefit of his
two living daughters, the principal fall
ing to their children; and only in case
Liddy and Hitty died without direct
heirs could any thing more than
the merest trihe revert to poor Tom.
Hitty had been engaged to Arson Searle
year when old Mr.. Thorne shuffled off
the mortal coil and this unjust will came
to light, and Searle himself was at that
time only a 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
estate administered.
"Of course, I 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.
"No, 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 l can not live
without Arson. How can Wrong Tom
to pleasure myself? What will he have
to 90 out into this hard world with, if
il"
"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."
"You have Arson to think of, Hitty,
in this affair, as well as Tom. If you
don't love Tom better"
"Idon'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 | can not count upon
such an improbable contingency. A:
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 fol
it; it would be my guilt"
Nonsense, Kitty: your conscieac,