Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-05-18

sive communities to be found in the South
that Jacob Bonneville, had drifted, rather than
gone. Such men as he, with much intellect
and little will, are like the sea-weed on the
tide. The stolid oyster has his place in the
mud and on the rock, let the sea roar as II
may. Against the storm and the wave, the
Leviathan moves in his strength; but the
broken weed never rests, never battles with
the current, but is ever drifting, drifting,
drifting, whittier the winds and the waters
drive it.
1t was community of wealthy planters
residing in easy reach of their oyergrown
estates, around little inland village COM
posed of traders and merchants and OF those
who earned their bread in the sweat of their
faces, upon whom the naughty owners OF the
soil looked down with disdain, as upon race
far inferior to themselves.
The old village church-a place where men
are supposed to meet on a level-was at least
one gathering point where these two classes
might have an opportunity of beholding each
other once week and of looking into one an
others faces across the social gulf that separa-
ted them, here as elsewhere, and quite as
widely. 1t was an old church with pic
turesaue belfry, half enveloped in ivy, and had
an organ loft where quaint organ, that
might have come down from Medieval times
gave out it's grand solemn tones on the Sab
bath day and now, since Ada had been DOM
icled in the village, it's deep tones were often
heard on pleasant summer afternoons, render
ing with exquisite skill and effect, the grand
chef 0'eurres of the old masters. Here Ada
and Cecil Laroche first met. He was one OF
the wealthiest young planters OF this arlsto-
cratic community, and the rare beauty captl-
waited him at first sight. She was too young,
too proud and too true to her maidenly in
stincts, to have made marriage necessary
consideration but he was All admirer of her
sex, a man of polished and captivating man.
ners, and, without too closely scrutinizing his
character, the child of the wandering music
teacher consented to become his wife.
Was the old man, broken and ruined as he
was, overjoyed at this fine match Did he
esteem it grand triumph for his homeless
daughter Some might think so, but the news
fell upon him like blow.
Others might have accounted it great good
fortune that the daughter of poor old man
who had hard struggle for his bread, was
to be welded to a stylish and aristocratic
young planter who had counted his wealth by
tens of thousands but even though old Jacob
might, in manner, have rejoiced at the turn
of the wheel of fortune so far as it affected his
daughters lot in life, yet STILL at the same time
it almost crushed the unregarded old man
whose fine instincts told him that his presence
in the home of his daughter, bringing to mind
the humble lot from which she was taken,
would be felt by it's naughty master as most
unwelcome intrusion. Humbly he took his
place at distance from the bridal party in an
obscure corner of the village church while the
solemn ceremony was passing. 1t fell upon
his ear like service for the dead. When it
was ended, he felt himself, for the first time
in his sad life, all utter outcast from all hu-
man sympathy.
Did she, standing at the altar and, with
delicate and refined taste, wearing on her
person nothing but the plain and simple bri-
dal outfit that had been provided for her out
of the poverty of that desolate old man, feel
that a rift had commenced breaking along the
plane of her life, separating all her past from
the future, and that the old father, who had
loved her so much, and silently sacrificed so
much for her good, was about to vanish and
fall utterly from her daily life ?
With bright and happy face, but eyes
brmming with tears of reawakened tender
ness, she FASTENED to seek out the old man in
presence of them all, and cast her arms about
his neck. She had begun to realize all his
struggles, and all his tenderness for her, and
the mingled feelings that were so busy in his
heart at this hour
''Now, father, give me your blessing and
come with me at once to your new home
yours, father, as well as mine-where we will
try to make you so happy"
''The mercenary beggars ~ was the thought
of more than one. "Will they betray their
'baseness, and show, even here, their exultation
at the bargain they have made ?"
But the old man, striving to be cheerful and
Joyous, excused himself. He was the poorest
man present, but his pride was purer and
loftier than them all. He would never give
them occasion to say that his daughter had
married to find him bread and home.
They went their way-Ada to her grand
home on Magnolia Hill, where troops of SER
wants ATTENDED her, and rich furniture and
comforting luxuries were on every side, but
1 am afraid that after all, there was as many
thorns in her new way as in the old, and
hmm itn
the tables of the neighbors around her were
overloaded, no social crumbs were allowed to
fall to her-poor socialbeggar lying at the gates
of Society, in it's purple and fine linen and faring
sumptuousy every day. No good Samaritans
passed along her way-only Righteous Pharl-
sees, who passed her by. And Cecil Laroche {:
he was more of a social Pharisee, l fear, than
either he or she suspected. lie passed by,
too-nearer than the others-but he never
turned his eyes to look at her wounds, or
poured oil into them, nor bound them up.
He did not, perhaps, know that in his fine
mansion she could fall into the hands OF thieves,
who made her far poorer than when she came
there, and dealt her many wound that he
never saw or thought of, so silent and uncom-
planning was she when the arrows of careless
or hasty words were piercing her to the soul.
Much less did she suspect that those that cut
deepest and ranked most, We're winged from
his own bow.
And old Jacobs way? Well, it was lonely
one. too, and led him far away to the wilder
ness on the borders of silver lake, where he
entered up homestead and the rough'handed
but warm hearted settlers built him a COM
Portable cabin and he gathered around him