The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-08-25
MRS. RaANCHESTER'S HOUSE.

MRS. mANCHESTER'S HOUSE.
For how long time Mrs. Manches-
ter had been my friend Twas younger
than she, and altogether different, for
she was one of those born to rule the
race, and I was utterly devoid of any
courage of self assertion. Perhaps our
very difference explained our friend
ship. It often seemed to me that only
the great women of history were quite
her equals, and I often thought of the
part she could have played had circum-
stances thrown her into any heroic
situation, instead of making her merely
o rich woman Of good family. As for
me, J. was always an applauding audi
ence, an admiring worshiper, delighted
with her beauty, her grace, her ease, de-
lighted that anything SO good should be
her, ] loved her.
Ny own delicate health would have
hindered my making acquaintances, or
entering into gayeties, if nothing else
had done so; and when we came,
Harold and !, to live in the splendid
city where she made her winter home,
her house was the only place where l,
at LEAST, had any view of the great
world. Harold, of course, had many
more opportunities, for he was strong
and brilliant man, full of wit and charm
and dating, only, as such men often
are, unfortunate in everything he
touched relating to money. We were
absolutely alone in the world, and we
sustained toward each other very
tender relation, for had been. given
baby into his mothers arms when my
own mother died, and we had been
brother and sister, in all but blood,
since that hour. Harold represented
the whole of mankind to me, who had
never had lover and l used to think
he cared for me all the more because
his untoward fate kept him apart from
the girl he had loved so long-so long,
for. she had seen but twenty-five sum-
mers now, and she had promised her
self to him six years ago. She had
promised but her father--who knew
the advantages Of money, it's comforts
and blessings, and had no idea of sac
riticing the thing he loved best in the
world to want and care-he had en-
forced another promise, this promise
from Harold, and to the effect that he
would not claim her hand till he could
give her as fine home as that from
which he took her.
And so we lived on, he always hoping
to seize fortune for Amy McNeils sake,
fortune always eluding his grasp, and I
waiting and watching, hoping and pray
ing, for his sake, to have the little sun
beam come and brighten my life by
frightening Harolds-lovelier than the
first wild rose, fresh as the violet, happy
as bird upon the bough, the sweetest
little morsel of beautiful flesh and
blood, I thought then, that ever trod
the earth, and loving me. almost before
she knew Harold, with one of the pas
sions which young girls sometimes feel
for stouthearted old maids, and loved
by me first on her own account, and
afterward on Harold's. Every year we
hoped for the good luck to crown
Harold's enterprises that should entitle
him to bring her home, that should
give him home to bring her to, and
every year the luck fell short.
Now they had discovered oil on his
waste land in Pennsylvania-there were
millions in it; the oil took fire, and
burned the region out. Now he bent
every energy toward procuring the run
ming of a railway through his Michigan
wood lots, whose cutting would furnish
q lifelong income; the railway ran miles
to the south of it. Now he plunged into
stocks, relying on sources of informa-
tion that affected the market; his broker
made fortune, and not only stripped
him of every penny, but left him in
debt to a point that, with his finely
strung sense of honor, was q perpetual
nightmare. At last he had settled down
to the practice of his profession, with
its slow returns, economizing in every
way, in order that he might pay each
quarter some installment on the in
debtedness which CALLED him so, and
which now seemed to make such an i'm
passable barrier between him and his
happiness, unless the great windfall of
success that never came should come at
last. Once in a while he went and
visited the McNeils for day and night;
once in while he sent me; he limited
himself to weekly letter, both because
Amy was not a letter writer, and be-
cause he thought it the wiser way: and
OF late Amy had been little reprQach-
ful that he should think more of honor
than of love. and should be spending on
his indebtedness what might be amassed
into a home, spurred on, I saw on the
occasion of my last visit, by her
fathers talk about the Quixotic folly of
Harold's refusing to take the poor
debtors oath. and so get rid of his
cares and begin life anew. And Harold
sat evening after evening at his desk,
not writing leaders or reviews, knew,
but poring overt he little ivory minia-
ture-that thing of beauty which was
all there was to represent to him wife,
home and future. 1t used to make my
heart ache for him, and sometimes /