Connecticut western news., 1881-01-12

grace, her dark, large-eyed lovellness, the simplicity of her always perfect ladyhood, if one may use the word, were things always to admire, and crowds followed her. He also admired her he had g tender care for her, gentle attachment to her, and if he never loved her, she never knew he did not She hardly remembered that he had ever had his poor pale passion in of him as only her own, and thanking him for the bliss he had given her in his long faithfulness. But his poor pale passion had become an ideal thing to him, sort of pole-star round which his soul revolved so entirely as to be auto matic and unconscious in it's motion. He did not actively and all the time re- member it, but it helped to shape his course, and it was always there.
 And at last, then, Maskelyn was his own master once more. But of me in his freedom it did not occur to him to think as an actual possibility in flesh and blood. He had never heard of me he had never dared to ask for me; he took it for granted that was long since another mans wife. And when, after some years more, in manner unawares to himself, the memory began to work in his heart, he came to the old town again as pilgrim visits a shrine, and without dream of finding me.
 And in all these years, after the first one of unbearable suffering, had staid there in my home, doing the duty that came first to hand, both since it was duty and since it might prevent my pain. And the pain had passed at length, had left only @ soreness and sorrow, had become sublimated, as it were, into something I would not lose for all it's pang. One by one, father and mother, brother and sister, had left me; but I still dwelt in the sweet old house, and sat of summer evenings upon the porch amid the honeysuckles. At first had thought could never breathe their air again but at last it had grown precious to me; it was my Il for. But the score and more of years had not been unhappy to me; my daily routine had taken much thought the poor children that I taught, and Belle and Alice and the rest, served in some degree to keep me young; for, as I said, I hated to grow old; and if any one was kind enough to say they would hardly know me for more than the elder sister of the young girls about me, my skin still so smooth, the color on my cheek so delicate, the pale gold of my hair still untouched by silver, it was apt to move my heart with little pulse of pleasure, although I knew, in truth, and for all that, that fifty years must always count for fifty years. Now and then heard of Maskelyn in his public life-I had not exactly thought it was wrong, once when went to a large city, to buy photograph of him, with those of some other public people but I kept it locked away, and allowed myself to look at it but once every year. And when did look at it it was only with one hurried glance of the eye, one thrill and spring of the heart, lest sinned, lest l made him sin, and I wrapped it the closer away again. But the day after had seen that face was always a day of mourning. And at last I knew that he had no longer wife; and year went by, and year, and year, and he had not come. Sometimes, in wonder ing and thinking, my heart would beat so ioud that it seemed as if only fasting and prayer would still it, and blushed and burned to think I wasted 8 throb on one who had long ago ceased to care, who never came to see; and one day I took his pictures, that of the boyish beauty and that of the stalwart man, and burned them both to ashes, and prayed that my love might burn to ashes with them, and my heart be cold and at peace in that my fiftieth year.
 But if I had not learned every line of the later picture by heart, whether I would or no, might not have known Maskelyn when he came sauntering by the gate that night, and gave look at the porch, and started as if bolt had struck him, and stopped and leaned his folded arms on the gate, and stared at me as sat there.
 He know me. In the softly begin ming shadows of the twilight my face seemed hardly changed, and air and attitude were still the same. He knew  me, but he did not believe in me h. thought something had happened to his brain. or else he saw vision in a trance. He lifted his hat and rubbed his forehead he half turned to go away then he wheeled about, opened the gate, and came slowly up the path, with his solemn gaze still fixed upon me. An, how sweet the honeysuckle breath came, stirred by his advancing motion
 Olivia !" he said.
 " Maskelyn! " I replied. And I felt as he did-impossible to say whether l was dead or alive, whether it was this world or the next, whether I really saw him, or it was, as it had been many a time before, that dreamed I did. And then I said to myself, "The worst has come. I shall hear presently that Maskelyn is dead" But he was saying to himsef-and yet heard him "Can it be? Is it SO? Herself? In the old home! My God if she should yet be free " And then glad cry, and we were in each others arms. And we were fifty years old. Too old for such joy and I drew back. all hlushino and