The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-04-17
A NIGHT OF YEARS.

The following very interesting story is
founded upon fact, or so asserted by the
contributor, who states she has kept the
subject of this sketch-.Miss Dutton-
over night often, when she was travel
ing from town to town in a state of in
sanity.
My READER: | have sat some minutes
with my pen suspended in the air above
my paper. have been debating deli
cate point as l am in position. You
will perhaps recollect that one of Fanny
Forests exquisite sketches was entitled
|'Lucy Dutton."
Now it happens that the real name of
the heroine of the '''ower true tale''
which | am about to do myself the honor
OF relating to you was no other than
Lucy Dutton. Shall l rob her of her
birthright, compel her to wear monanae
dague,re because my sister authoress
gave the true name to one of her ideal
creations? that's the question. "No!"
You said no, did you not? then Lucy
Dutton it shall be.
Some forty years since, in the interior
of my beautiful native State, New York,
lived the father of our heroine, an honest
and respectable farmer. He had but
two children-Lucy, noble girl of nine
teen, and Ellen, year or two younger.
The first named was winningly rather
than strikingly beautiful. Under man
ner observable for its seriousness, and
nlm-like serenity, We're concealed an i'm
passioned nature, and heart of the
deepest capacity for loving. She was
remarkable from her earliest childhood
for a voice of thrilling and haunting
sweetness.
Ellen button was the brilliant anti
pode of her sister ''bom beauty
whose prerogative of prettiness was to
have her own way in all things and at
all times. An indulgent father-a weak
mother, and an idolizing sister, who had
unconsciously contributed to the ruin of
a nature not at first remarkable for
strength or generosity.
Where, in all God S creatures, is heart
lessness SO seeming unnatural selfish
ness so detestable as in beautiful
womanp
Lucy possessed fine intellect, and as
her parents were. well read New En-
CHAMBERS, she and her sister were far
better educated than other girls of her
station in the then half-settled part of the
country. In those days many engaged
in school teaching, from the honor and
pleasure it afforded, than from necessity.
Thus, few months previous to the COM
mencement of our sketch, Lucy Dutton
left for the first time her fireside circle,
to take the charge of school some
twenty miles from her native town.
For some time her letters home were
expressive only of the happy content
ment which sprang from the conscious
ness of active usefulness, of receiving,
while imparting good. But anon there
came change; then were those records
for home characterized by fitful gayety
or dreamy sadness, indefinable hopes
and fears seemed striving for SUI
premacy in the writer's troubled little
heart. Lucy loved, but scarcely ac-
knowledged it to herself, while she knew
not that she was loved; so for time,
that second birth of woman's nature was
like warm sunrise struggling with the
cold mist of the morning.
But one day brought letter which
could not be forgotten to the home of
the absent, and letter traced bv a
hand that trembled in sympathy with a
heart tumultuous with happiness. Lucy
had been wooed and won, and she but
waited her parents approval of her
choice, to become the betrothed of Edwin
W., man of excellent family and stand
ing. The father and mother accorded
their sanction with many blessings, and
Lucy's next letter promised a speedy
visit from the lovers.
To such natures as Lucy's, what an
absorbing and yet what revealing of
self is first passion-what prodigality
of giving, what an incalculable wealth
of receiving-what breaking up is there
of the deep waters of the soul, and how
heaven descends in sudden star shower
upon life. If there is season when an
angel may look with interest upon her
mortal sister, tits when she beholds her
heart pass from its bud-like innocence
and freshness of girlhood and tasking to
its very core the fervid light of love,