The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-06-30

Ouo mOrnlLR, MIS-. SraVeS Called Oh me.
Alas! as soon as saw her, felt that
she was the herald of sorrow. will not
delay to narrate our conversation, and
the circumstances of her story as she
slowly and painfully related them. I
will compress them into simple state
ment.
Her husband entered upon his duties
at Wilmington, and continued there for
some time, with every prospect OF the
restoration of his health. He had asso-
ciated with him nephew, and was thus
enabled to be more contented and happy.
But yet all his thoughts were with his
family at home. To rejoin them, to en-
brace them once more, able to support
them by his labor, and see their happy
conferences around him, was the sum-
NIT of his desire. The prospect to realize
fortune could not have seduced him to
delay his return one moment, after the
recovery Of health.
But our fortunes are ever treacherous
to appearances. At the period when the
promise was brightest, he was destined
to the saddest reverse. AS he sat one
evening, conversing with his nephew
about his home and those dear ones
whom it contained, an acquaintance
came in with the astounding, overwhelm
ing report that his wife was-dead.
Dead! She was everything to him;
she who had shared his joys and his sor-
rows; she whom he had left in the with
ering anxieties and sufterings of perjury,
supported only by the hope of a happy
meeting; she, his wife, the mother of'his
children, dead. gone forever!-dead, and
he, ~ h., -, II, 1,1I
of sickness, to hear her latest sigh!
Think not, reader, that the tender
sympathies of the heart do not dwell in
the bosoms of the poor. The blow came
upon the unhappy husband like crush
ing thunderstroke. He was stricken to
the very earth. In a few hours he was a.
pitiable maniac. His nephew watched
over him with anxious care, and sent the
desolating news to his home. That news
found the wife and mother we'll and
happy happy in the sympathy with her
husbands hopes-to be we'll and happy
no longer.
1 cheered the wretched wife to the best
of my ability. l cheered her with the
blessed consultations that our Heavenly
Father had granted through His Son;
for, woodward, there was nothing but
darkness.
Two or three weeks of distressing
anxiety ensued, during which not word
of news reached Mrs. Graves about her
husbands fate. At the end of that
period the nephew, who had been his
companion, entered the room. At once,
when she saw him coming as he did, I'M
accompanied by her husband, the shaft
of whitening conviction pierced her soul
that he was the herald of the worst-that
her husband was no more. The news he
brought was painful enough, but not so
bad as that 1t left some little founda-
ton for hope to build upon. He told, that
after some days of sad deprivation of
reason, Mr.. Graves had become better,
with the first dawniug of returning sense,
he was resolute to go back to his home.
his children-that home which, to his
thought, had lost, its brightest light
those children, who were motherlcss and
alone. Weak as he was, he would go.
The Directors OF the road gave him
ticket to its extremity. and he had suffi-
cient money to bear his expenses after
ward. This event occurred more than a
mouth before, and the nephew, when he
came on, expected to find him safe in his
Northern home; but nothing had been
heard of him.
Where was he? It was idle to conjec
ture. We did not express our fears to
each other, but we'll l knew that the
heart-stricken wife was thinking, as l
thought, that in the midst of that long
and fatiguing journey, weak and misera-
BILE as he was, his mind had deserted him
again; that he had wandered away from
the sight of men, and, by accident or his
own unconscious hand, was removed
from earth forever. But l did not hest
tate to do all that the circumstances
would admit. l inserted an article in the
newspapers, described his person and his
pitiable story, and called on other prints
in the line Of his homeward route to copy
it in benalf of his suffering family. But
days passed, and nothing was heard.
Mrs. Graves was gradually settling
down into the mournful conviction that
she was alone in the world, and was
sadly refectingMpon the means OF sup
port for her little ones in the long and
painful future, when, one morning, very
early, before the dawn, she was aroused
from her slumbers by a loud knocking
at the door. She opened ito hear her
husbands voice, to sink into his arms!
pass over his bewildered delight to
find her in health before him, whose
grave he had thought to visit. l pass