Connecticut western news., 1880-02-25
Mrs. BeaufOrt's Son.


 hope. His little cap, and shoes, and jacket, found on the bank where he had laid them when he went in to bathe- silly child !-had not been enough to convince the mother that her missing boy was lost to her. Yet it was close to where the river fell into the sea, and where the tide was strong ;-how, then, could she hope9 But this latter news, the finding of this half -decayed body of little boy, which the finder had been obliged to bury at once-this was too plain to be denied. She must give him up. -., ... ..a. .
 Mrs. Beaufort closed her doors and sat down in her splendid mansion to mourn. Her servants came and went about her, but she would see no one else. Her own kindred were too far away, across the ocean in the New World, to come to her :; and she had known these of her husbands only dur ing the year that he had been master of Beaufort Manor.
 He had been separated from his friends, 8 houseless wanderer, and they had cared nothing for him. till old MT. Beaufort, the bachelor lord of the man. or, dying, had, to their astonishnent and indignation, left the great fortune which they had confidently expected would be divided between two families nearest of kin, to scapegrace. wander ing Bernard Beaufort. It was for this, then, that they had fattered and petted the eccentric, cross old man 1 It was for this they had lied to him over and over, and vowed that they expected nothing from him, and wanted nothing, and came to see only him, not the manor. They had borne his sardonic grins, when he listened to their false hoods, only that Bernard Beaufort, whom they hardly acknowledged for a relation, and his American wife, whom they had never acknowledged at all, and their boy, should inherit Beaufort Man. : or and all of the old mans property, ex- eept the hundred pounds apiece which he had mockingly bequeated his two cousins and their twelve children, all told. -.- I@#a.s.~
 It was unbearablei And all because Bernard had had the art to name his boy Philip, after the old man Had moi each of his cousins Philip, her eldest But he said that Bernard had gwen him no notice of the naming, as they had, had asked no christening present, and that he Ghe old man) had heard the child's name onty by accident. There. fore it must have been named from some recollection. .-...e .-.-
 When the new heir and his wife came home, the relations poeketed their wrath so far as to visit them. It was moi worth while to shut themselves out ot the place because it WAS not to be theirs. .--
 Mrs. Beaufort astonished her new rel atives. They expected to find 8 com mon person; they found 8 lady more highly bred and educated than them selves. An elegant form, habited witl exquisite taste, classical face, purel, pale, rich dark hair, bright dark eyes and admirably self-possessed such wal the new lady whom they went to. criti cise and patronixe.
 Even when her husband died, si1 months after their coming to the prop ert.y, she did not puch seek their com panionship, though they then redoublet their attention, as their hopes increased
 Bernard had been an affectionate, bu adissipated husband and if his wifi grieved for him, it was not as one with out hope. Little Philip, her idol, no, two years old, was left her. She turne' to him with all her heart. g
 And now he was gone Three year old, and so venturesome 1 How had h eluded servants and mother, and play mates? !? He had done so, in spite o every care. The river running pas their park had enticed him, and he wa gone. Every effort had been made search, advertisements, rewards offered but in vain; and the finding of ths little body with the golden hair in curl about the face had satisfied her. curl had been given the mother an putting it side by side with one she ha cut from Philips head only mont 2 before, they could not be told apart.
 Scarcely had the bereavsd nnoth' s.g mourned for her son . month, when lawyers naissiye reached her; and st woke to the fact that it was not only h. son who was lost but the heir of Beaufo