Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1882-01-28

But the child had seen Lady
Redgrave standing at the open din
| ing-room door.
She darted forward and clutched
al her skirts.
ooh lady! lady I" she cried,
"Mammy's ill-she's there she
can't walk any more, Oh; lady
lady !-she'il die!-she'll diep'
Poor creature!" cried Lady
Redgrave. "How shocking! Par.
ker see what it is.
Eyes, my lady"
Parker went outside very reluc-
family. 1t was cold, and he ex-
pected to find somebody drunk on
the doorstep.
"P'r'aps, my lady you'd better
shut the door, he exclaimed, obse-
quiously; "as sometimes their
langwidge when disturbed sudden
on a doorstep is howdashus."
Frank Redgrave had risen and
came out with his mother. He
looked at the child; then pushing
the footman aside, went on to the
doorstep.
"It's woman !-she is i'll % he
exclaimed. "HeIp me to carry her
into the hail."
Hadn't we better send for the po-
liece, my lord ?"
"Do as tell YOU"
Parker, finding further remon-
strances useless, gave way. Lifting
the PROSTATE woman tenderly, Lord
Redgrave helped carry her into the
hall.
The child knelt down beside her.
ION, nanny, speak to me :" she
cried "mammy I"
The dining-room door was open.
The light streamed down upon the
senseless woman. The child drew
her face around, and Lord Redgrave
uttered a wild cry.
"Nellie! Great God mother.
she has come back from the dead !
1t is Nellie 7"
Lady Redgrave ran to her son.
She thought he had taken leave of
his senses, but one glance at the
PROSTATE woman's face told her all.
Her interview with her sons
wife, and all that followed, had in
delibly impressed the features of
that face upon her memory.
The poor, starved outcast lying
on the floor of Lord Redgrave's hall
was Lord Redgrave' wife
In the early days of Nellie's re-
covery her story was told-told
while tears stood i'm the eyes of the
woman who had treated her so
cruPly once.
Nellie had been i'm the theater and
escaped. Then the wild thought
came to her that she might free
Frank of his burden and the family
OF one who, they believed, had so
cruelty wrOnged them. She knew
that if she was missed her death
would be believed in. She sold her
jewels and with the money went to
England. Then in due course, her
child-her Nellie-was born. But
her health failed gradually, and she
could no longer teach or sew, and
so she and her child drifted lower
and lower, until they came to be
penniless and hopeless on Waterloo
Bridge on Christmas hight.
Toiling along to the lodging
house, Nellie's feeble strength had
failed her, and she had sunk down
exhausted upon her husbands steps.
And that is how Lord RedgraVe,
who had mourned his life as lonely
evermore, had found a wife he
thought dead years ago, and child
of whose existence he knew moth
ing.
The next Christmas day in that
great house there was no silence.
The music and the laughter were as
loud there as anywhere, and bright
and clear over it all rang the child
ish accents of little Nellie, as she
sat on her graudmother's knee and
pulled the funny caps that came out
OF the crackers over her long auburn
hair.
&
The night policeman on Waterloo
bridge is changed. The man who
used to be on that duty has a green
grocery business, and is doing well.
He had two hundred pounds to
start with. 1t was given him by
gentleman who asked him if he
remembered giving poor woman
half a crown.
| trust his good fortune may not
tempt the members of the force to
cast their bread upon the waters too
lavishly.