Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1881-11-03

girltF but as Meg did her work as usual,
he saw nothing. So on this evening he ate
his supper leisurely. and as usual in ST.
lence, and then fished deliberately into his
greatcoat pocket and produced the letter.
Here. Meg, got this out Of the posi-.
Office for you; and Bill Fosters back, and
will be here tomorrow"
II was not difficult for Meg Anderson 10
take the letter from her father without
sign of emotion. Indeed, the effort would
have been rather 10 evince feeling than to
repress it. Such things are so much mat
tiers of habit, and the habit Of her life had
been silence. She put 1t in her pocket and
went about her work. Her father sat by
the fire and smoked, and once said, why
don't you read your letter'"
"You know I'm slow at reading hand
writing, and it's best for me to wait Till I've
time" she answered.
He said no more, but after knocking the
ashes utof his pipe, yawned once or twice
portentously, and then bade her a gruft
goodnight. Then, when he had gone and
she was alone, she waited no logger, but
sat down by the dim lamp and read Arthur
Middletons letter. 1t began:
You must have wondered, my dear Meg over my
abrupt disappearance and my enigmatiGal note
assure YOU have chosen you among the first to
hear thai the desire OF my heart Is fulfilled have
tGwsS ssish Sa S his
some day meet her again, ending with his best
wishes for the future andl shall never forget nov
All Always 'D' ARTHUR MIDDLETON.
That was all; although the letter was not
short still virtually there was nothing in it
but a great deal of kind feeling and gra-
ciousness. Arthur had meant indeed when
he wrote this letter to communicate some
definite plan for Meg's future, but he had
counted upon his cousin to construct such
a plan; and when he had once met her,
somehow the quiet little creature who had
been the only human interest in his Sum.
mer was so dwarfed by her juxtaposition
to this giant feeling of his life, that no
time seemed appropriate, no impulse moved
him to introduce her name. Her individu
ality faded almost at once into O dim,
pleasant memory, and Arthur was too
happy to be anything but absorbed and
egotistical.
Meg sat long over the fire after she had
read Arthurs letter through twice. She
did not cry over it, it gave her no violent
emotion or shock; only somehow as she
folded it up after the second reading, she
felt strange, dead feeling come over her
| something like being extinguished, she
would have said had she been used to illus
trate her feelings by comparison; and in
truth life seemed to taste and look like
ashes to her Perhaps the hardest thing
about the grief of a young person-or an
ignorant untaught creature, is its one-idea-
ness one-sidedness, its narrowness Of vi
sion, and consequent intensity. The youth,
the futures sole inheritor, feels as if life
was over, while in truth he has but stum-
bled on its threshold and every door is yet
to open. He sees nothing beyond his i'm
mediate grief The untutored nature sees
only the side of sorrow which it feels, and
has none of the noble consolation that
comes from conviction born of breadth and
depth Of thought, that from pain of cue
creature springs the joy of another, end
that Birth is Deaths child. Poor Meg saw
nothing of how it was, how it could not
but be so; she only felt it. She had strayed
along, not even knowing of the existence
of those iron laws that now were grinding
her soul to powder.
1t was all bitterly hard to her. She had
never thought of loving. She had loved,
and the knowledge that she possessed a
capacity to love and suffer came with the
vital agony of feeling her love eradicated
as if by a sharp, keen knife, and there was
no way of escape for her. The narrowness
of her life shut her in; she was thrown
back upon herself utterly and entirely She
was like Gagged bird once set free, soaring
once abroad in heavens light and air, and
then cruel hand breaks its wings and it is
AGAIN and forever bound to earth. She had
not known in what mere dream she had
been living till it was shattered. This let
ter seemed to turn the palace of her imagi-
nation into hut. All her old bitterness
came back like flood; the doors Arthur
had opened to her seemed to shut with a
dull, inexorable sound, and a sullen dark
ness settled down on her soul. She was
too unframed and untaught to rise above
her pain, else the memory of the Summer
might have remained embalmed and pre-
cious. No; she turned upon her hearts
garden and trampled down its tender Spring
shoots. She might have known, she said
to herself, that she was not meant to be like
him, and she was nothing, had never been
aught to him but an amusement. He had
crossed the gulf between them, and she had
forgotten that when he once repassed it, it
could never be bridged over. She would
never think of him again. She was most
miserable. Before she closed her eyes that
night she had swept away all vestiges of
the past from. her mind, and set her face
like flint toward her old life come back.
"Bill Foster would come tomorrow, and
better so," she thought. He came and
found Meg, when he proposed an early day,
ready to be married when he pleased.
In a few weeks it was all settled, and
Foster and his wife lived on with her father
in the cottage on the hill. She resumed
her old life, and it Jared with her according
to the common lot. Children were born to
her; two died, and the others, four in num-
Der, lived and grew up about her. Her
days were busy and monotonous, filled with
work, and not exempt from anxiety and
care, but still free from great suffering and
not devoid of some simple pleasures. Her
children loved her with love uncommon
in its tenderness and intensity, and she re-
turned it tenfold. Her husband found her
good wife, and his will always seemed
hers, save once, when he demurred to send
ing the two girls to school after they had
learned to read and write; then she had
seemed so reused and showed so undue
and passionate feeling, that he instinct
lively ceded the point, and it was never
raised again.
When she had reached middle age, and
her golden hair was almost all silver white
Gt turned rapidly after she lost her two
children), she took cold from some care
lessness, and when the doctor came death
had already set his mark upon her. "She
can not live many hours" he said to her
husband and children, clustered together
little awe-struck, sad-faced group-in the
room below that in which she lay; and
then he went aWay There was no need to