The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1882-09-23
Select Storg,
From Harper's Bazar.


Yes, fifty is great age-people seem to
think it is; half century. l have felt
it as I look back upon the years; l have
felt it as looked before me in the glass; L
have felt it in the society of Belle and her
mates; I have felt it when people treated
me with the cool politeness due their own
self-respect, and that done, have fled to the
charms of little Belle and Alice; and If L
had any common sense should not have
felt it with the regret did.
But I hated all along to be growing to-
ward fifty. hated to see that | could not
sit out doors of an evening without little
shawl; that could not take the old ram
bles and rides of my youth unless fatigued !;
that instead of thrilling freshly in every
nerve to the beauty of sunset and scenery
as [ used to do, [ quivered only in remem-
bering how I used to thrill.
And then, too, I dreaded to be old,
thinking if some day-some day-Maske-
lyn should see me, and pass by without
knowing me, or, if knowing me, knowing
only to suffer mortal shock at the sight !;
and never thinking that Maskelyn also was
growing old. "A, perhaps should have
dreaded it all the more if | had thought
the years were setting lines in the smooth
olive of that face, were dimming the fire
of those great eyes, were whitening the
darkness of the locks that fell across that
brow of his, were impairing the music Of
that voice. never did think it. To me
he had sort of immortality. And now
now am fifty years old, as | was yester-
terday; but it is not bitter any more, as 1t
was Yesterday, with that old bitterness OF
vanished strength and interest; for L love
life. I feel the blood bounding warmly In
my viens, death seems farther away than
ever-it is only bitter now because | have
nothing but this old face, this old heart,
these used-up fifty years, to g i've Maskelyn.
1t is bitter, too, lest people should smile at
Maskelyn-
[ was sitting on the porch, thinking of
my years, that day. After all, it seemed
but the day before that [ had set there
with the delicious odor of the honey suck
les blowing all about me in the dusk, and
Maskelyn sat at my side, and the very air
we breathed famed to and fro in the fra
GRANGE full of the dark sweet mystery of
love- 1t seemed as if all the world had
been made just to come to blossom in that
evening, stars and winds and vaults OF
heaven, the evening that he first said that
he loved me, although our lives had grown
together so for years that we had each
known the thought of the other without
speaking, and knew that there were no
others on earth that could ever come as
close to either of us as the other did.
But this crowded the whole with GER
tainty, and we looked in each others faces
in the CLEANS of the starlight as if we were
the only two people on the planet. Alas
we were not
For Maskelyn was still very young, and
as the traveller for commercial house he
had his way to make. 1t was the morning
after that night in the dark and the dew
and the honeysuckle odor that he left the
ring on my finger, and went off on one OF
his Journeys. He was to go down the riv-
er to New Orleans before he returned, and
he took the steamer Beautemps at St
Louis-and it was thirty years before
heard from him how it happened. But
the world is full of tongues, and L heard
it, all the same, on the four winds that
blow no one knows whittier.
There had taken passage on that fatal
steamer a wealthy planter OF Louisiana
with his wife, an invalid French lady, and
their young daughter Adele. She was a
lovely little thing, this Adele, and she sang
like bird. Maskelyn heard her singing
one evening, and, passionately fond OF mu,
sic. he soon made her acquaintance, and
was singing with her. She was as child
like, too, as she was young and pretty; she
had soon confded to him all her affairs
and he, secure in his plighted love, and
never dreaming of misconstruction or trou-
BILE, became her hourly associate, and took
pleasure in her innocent companionship.
One afternoon they sat in their accus-
toned seat, reading, as it CHANGED, from
the same book. In their occupation and
their talk they had taken no notice OF the
excitement of the people about them, and
if they knew they were racing the Charon
SO they had been doing half the week, and
| tnOugnG nOGHlHS VI IL. Aho. az ''o ON
shrek of countless voices rent the ar
there was shock and an explosion, as II
the bottomless pit had broken through the
bed of the river. The air was full OF fly
ing beams and falling men and women; the
river was full of them, and they were among
them all, afoat but alive.
Afoat in the branches of huge tree
that was sailing and swirling down the nv
er, and in no immediate danger of destruc
ton, but exhausted and unable to do more
than keep the breath they had for awhile
IF others had been saved, they had reached
one of the banks, or had been picked up BY
the Charon's boats. The quick Southern
dusk was upon them before Adele had done
more than open her eyes and shut then
again. Neither she nor he had been serl
ously hurt, but they were absolutely alone
/ in the thick night and the rushing river
What else could they do than comfort one
another, poor children, sitting side by sId'
in the cradle made by the big branches
and trembling at all the dark, unknown tu