The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-05-12

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Isabella hastened to tell his sad story to
her mother, who demonstrated with Mrs.
Martin so effectually that Andrew was re-
moved to a more comfortable room that
very hour. Mrs. Stewart visited him often;
and every day Isabella, with her nurse,
sought his room, bringing an orange or
some cooling drink she had made for him.
Once she brought book, and found, to
her surprise, that the boy, more than twice
her age, could not read With her moth
ers permission, she undertook to teach him;
and as his sickness was long one, and his
recovery tedious and protracted, before
Mrs. Stewart left the sea-shore in NOvem-
Der. Andrew could read as well as his little
instructor
Mrs Martin wondered at so much kind
ness being shown to such an ''onprincipled
wagrant" But Mrs. Stewart, struck with
Andrews capacity for good as well as evil,
earnestly entreated Mrs Martin to act with
more consideration to the boy so helplessly
thrown upon her care.
Tears filled the eyes of the friendless lad
as he said farewell to those who alone, in
seven long years, had spoken to him words
of kindness.
The next summer, when Mrs. Stewart
returned to the seaside, her first question
was for Andrew. In repl y, she was told
that he had run away three months before,
and had not since been heard from. 1t
was supposed that he had gone to sea, as
he had always shown a great liking for
sailors life.
When Isabella was fifteen, her father
died at sea; and his last resting place was
that ocean on whose bosom so many years
of his life had been spent. When the sad
tidinos were communicated to Mrs. Stew
art, she was at Beachland, the name given
to their place by the shore. She never
recovered from the blow sufficiently to be
able to leave it again When winter came
on, she welcomed the solitude and dreari-
ness it brought with it, as if nature were
responding to her own desolation. Day
after day she passed in looking, from her
cottage window, on those waters that held,
underneath their tranquil surface, her dear
est earthly treasure. When the spring
came, it found her laid upon the couch
from which she felt she should never rise
again. She endeavored to prepare her
young daughter for this separation, and
had several long conversations with her on
the subject. Among other things, Mrs.
Stewart dwelt much on her one act of dis
obedience to her father. She ascribed to
that all her subsequent misfortunes, and
charged Isabella, if she ever had an oppor-
tunity, to carry herself to the Marquis de
Villena, a letter, full of expressions of pen
itence and earnest requests for forgiveness,
which she left with her. She told her
daughter that she left her with ample
means of support-that Mr.. Sunderland, a
merchant of New York, and an old friend
of her fathers, was to act as her guardian;
she was to reside in his family; and Mrs,
Sunderland had promised to act towards
her as if she were her own child.
Not long after all these arrangements
had been completed, Mrs. Stewart died.
On hearing of the event, Mr.. Sunderland
wrote a long letter of coincidence and ad-
vice to the orphan girl and excused him
self from attending to the last sad rites for
the wife Of his friend, by the illness of
Mrs. Sunderland Her i'll health lasted
during the whole summer, so that her hus
band, being compelled to attend her to
various watering=places found himself un-
able to visit his ward, even for day. 1t
was mid winter before he could spare any
time for that purpose; but then he came
prepared he said, for a long and serious
business conversation. He laid before the
young girl great number of fpapers, which
he asked her to examine. She attempted
to obey him; but, entirely unused to busi-
ness, she found herself unable to understand
them Mr. Sunderland, with solemn gray
ity, undertook to make the matter clear
He succeeded, at last, in proving to her
that, so far from leaving an Independent
fortune, her father had been, at his death.
indebted to the firm of Sunderland 4 Lane
to the full amount of his property, with
the exception of Beachland farm. That
still remained to Isabella; and the small in
come she could derive from it was to be
her sole support After he had impressed
upon Isabella that she had, of right, moth
ing to expect from him, he offered, with an
air of gracious patronage, to add every
year, to her slender means, one hundred
dollars, as a gift from himself to the daugh-
ter of his former friend. Isabella refused
this offer decidedly, for, although she Was
gentle and even timid, she had high spirit
when reused; and something in Mr.. Sun
derland's manner of speaking of her father
irritated her, she could hardly tell why.
Without feeling the slightest distrust of
her guardian, or doubt as to the correctness
of his statement, she yet shrank from in
curing any obligation to him-was relieved
when he rose to take his departure.
Years after, when one of his sons was
in the penitentiary, and another wandering,
nameless refugee, in Europe, to escape
the consequences of forgery, Mr.. Sunder-
land rest0red to Isabella more than eighty
thousand dollars, the principal and interest
of the sum of which he had defrauded her;
but meantime she had to pass unaided
through period, fortunately but a short
one, of priVation and trial
In order TO make the rent of Reachland
farm suffice for her maintenance, Isabella
was obliged to remain an inmate of Mrs.
Martins family; and IN that secluded spot
she passed nearly three years, maturing
daily in loveliness, both Of person and char
acter She had no congenial associates;
she had been so long accustomed to be the
exclusive companion of her mother, one of
the most refined and elegant of women,
that she shrapk from the society afforded
by that rustic neighborhood. With the
few books Mrs. Stewart had left, and her
piano and guitar, her needle, and the COM
panionship of the sea, and the woods, and
fields around, Isabella contrived to live as
she thought her mother would have liked
her to do if she were still with her
The summer that she was eighteen, Mrs.
Martin informed her that the farm had
been SO unproductiye lately that her hus-
band thought of leaving It, and buying
place of his own. In another year, his
lease would be out; and Isabella was asked