River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1879-12-25
FOREVER
4 story Of the Heartily the Late Har-
~ Hardwood Leach.

FOREVER!
4 story Of the Heartily the Late Har-
ry Hardwood Leach.
"Promisep'
81 do solemnly."
''Forever?' continued the solemn,
broken voice.
Forever" echoed the weepir : maid
en- by the bedside.
The wasted hands were raised over
the heads of the kneelipg figures: the
pale lips of the dying woman parted, the
tongue tried to utter bless ing; but all
brightness faded from the eyes. The
woman was dead.
Two young girls knelt at the bedside.
Constance Owen was the anne OF one,
with sallow skin and large brown eyes,
and Edith Ormond, as 81 e was called,
with riuglets of gold floating around her
fair neck, and whose heat was leaning
upon the shoulders of Constance, who
had promised the dying woman to be a
sister, protector-mother even-;o the
fair maiden at her side.
The strong, homely, faithful girl call
cd Constance was an adopted daughter
Of the dead lady-one Of those walls of
the street, whose only hope in life is in
the charity of some tender-hearted
stranger. Size, however, repaid her pro-
tector by love and regard as filial as
that of her own daughter, and when
upon her deathbed Mrs. Ormond babe
Constance Owen make her the solemn
promise recorded, the brave girl not
only did not falter, but whispered once
more TO the stricken girl at her side:
Eyes, Edith, for the sake Of the love
your dear mother gave to the orphan
viii love you better than myself-for-
ever"
Two years passod--two years since
Edith the beautiful and Constance the
brave had lost their best earthly friend.
The former mad grown more lovely even
than the promise OF the dawn of her ra-
diant maidenhood: the latter more
homely, larger featured, in the face, but
with years an added dignity of mien, a
more intelligent light in the quiet, ten
der brown eyes, and force of character
better defined IN every movement.
There came many sutton to Bonny-
brook-so the little country-seat belong
ing to Edith was called-but, so far, the
little cOquette did not pay much heed
to any OF them. She was chasing the
butterflies Of fancy around that garden
of Eden-frst youth. But at length her
beauty,grace and perhaps high social po-
sition, brought one day to the gates of
BonnybroOk one DR.. Paulding, a super
Tor and rising young physician, who
lived IN the city close by, and when he
had found his way to that pleasant
country nook, somehow he discovered
patients in that vicinity very frequently.
Was it Ellth's fair face that made him
take that blooming highway so often?
He was indeed fascinated by her
bright, girlish beauty, and one evening
after he had been wandering in the
gardens, under the moon, soft pleasant
words must have been spoken, for after
ne had gone Edith, with a flushed face,
dashed into the room where Constance
was awaiting her and throwing her
arms around her, said in q happy,
trembling voice:
"Oh darling, | am so happy. He
has told me he loved me-"
Constance spoke not word. Edith
was held moment to a beating heart,
soft kiss touched her forehead, and
the next moment she was alone.
HE loves me, he loves me II and
Edith looked out over the gardens, from
which the dews of night were distiling
all their odors; she gazed at the beauti-
full moon and peopled the shadows
with images of the man who had first
stirred her young life with divine mu-
sic of love.
A month after the pleasant Confes-
sion had been made, Edith was called
to the mountains of Vermont to attend
a dying aunt, the only sister of her dear
mother, and she had to proceed alone,
as BonnybroOk would rave lacked q
guardian if Constance had accompani-
edher-Dr. Paulding's duties utterly
denying him that pleasure.
Constance was engrossed in her home
duties and saw but little society, save a
few rustic neighbors, who only recon-
mended themselves by their goodness
of heart, and certainly not by the bril-
lancy of their wit or understanding.
Once in while DR.. Paulding would
ride out to Bonnybrook, as Constance
told him, "from the force of old habit, +"
but soon it seemed that the man of
medicine and science did not carry on
the conversation with the usual ease.
grace and spirlt.What had come between
Constance Owen and himself? Some
thing inexplcable. The noble woman
found a strange, rare pleasure IN the
society of the gifted man; the SCHOLARLY
man sympathy with the large hearted,
intellectual woman which he had never
known or experienced in any of her
sex. True" ne said to himself, "she
is not beautiful; indeed, measured by
the rules of beauty, she is positively
ugly. But who can gauge the charms
vi melodiOus voice, or deny the ten
derness Of an honest, kindly eyer"
And she, too, unused in this wise:
This DR.. Charles Paulding is a marvel
lousy gifted man. What powers of
language, what treasures OF imagination
he possesses! What a noble career he
has before him; and Edith"-here she
would pause and think Of that clinging
teudril, not as helping the growth OF the
oak, but as drawing from its strength.
Yet from all such thoughts as these her
staunch and loyal heart would resolute-
" turn away-yet for all this her speech
would not come as "trippingly on the
tongue" as in the old days, and he
would oltentimes finish a sentence in
the middle of It, and then lose himself
in vague glances at the ceiling or out
into the gardens.
o. 1t was a dangerous time for both OF
these awakening hearts. But they Gid
Sd on this treacherous stream, and
seemed only conscious that the hours
%ere sweet and that the sun shone on
the waves. There was no thought of
disloyalty in either heart. He was above
ali man Of honor, and she of all else
a loyal woman. Yet how charts delude
themselves. In the very pride of his
strength Samson was shorn of MS
oeks.
one quiet evening in July DR.. Paul
ding had taken tea at Bonnybrook, and
Constance-his ''hostess" only, she call
EFT herselG-strolled down TO the gate
Nth him. His impatient horse was
biting the rough old hitching-post and
throwing up CLOUDS of dust with his fore
feet. He had been kept there four
hours, and lie seemed more eager than
his maSto- to leave B9nnybrook behind
him. The doctor idly plucked some hell
otrope as they s!Tolied down the rose