News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-02-08

| liz NIllA DlNND -
The Graystons were one of the decayed
families that abound in New York, as IL
all other large cities. Mrs. Grayston
was the daughter of a well-to-do old
merchant, who gave her a comfortable
house as a wedding present, and as her
husband prospered in business, the
family were almost rs fashionable and
prominent as they wanted to be.
But one day Mrs. Grayston's husband
died, leaving his wife three girls and
very little money: her father had died
some years before, after having suffered
some reverses that swept away his prop
erty.
For year or two Mrs. Grayston con-
tinued to live as comfortably as ever,
thanks to what had come to her from
her husbands business, but just as she
became not unwilling to doff her black
robes and re-enter the society which she
was still young, pretty and spirited
enough to enjoy, she found her bank ac-
count exhausted. Her husbands 5 lawyer
advised her to sell her house, hire a
small one, and live as economically as
possible on the proceeds of the sale, but
| this course seemed to her as bad as going
out of the world, so she delayed doing
ANYTHING until an accumulation of bills
forced a sale, and Mrs. Grayston took
her family to a boarding-house.
Unable any longer to entertain in the
style she had done, Mrs. Grayston
learned rapidly that acquaintances are
seldom friends, and the discovery caused
her many bitter tears.
She wanted to be true to the memory
of her husband. but in her wild desire
to retain the position she was fast losing,
she gave many a witching smile to de
sirabIe bachelors and widOwCrs who
seemed to like her. But marriage was
not the result; half a dozen men would
have contended for her had she been
without encumbrances; but three girls,
Who soon would need to be dressed as
Young ladies, united to threaten with re
sponsibilities by which the rashest man
was appalled,.
Gradually Mrs. Grayston's money de-
parted. and so did her friends. Some
families moved away; others changed
their abodes and their social sets, until
Mrs. Grayston was absolutely out OF
society and without a friend. With her
last few hundred dollars she made
desperate efforts to put herself III the
wav of earning a livelihood for her little
family. She attempted to teach, to keep
boarders. to write for the magazines, to
paint and embroider; but none of her
faculties had ever been trained and she
failed ut everything; 50, finally, she and
her girls came down TO supporting them
selves by sewing for the shops. By
steady work they earned food, clothing
and shelter, but very little more. Yet in
all their poverty they eagerly read every
line they could find in the newspapers
about the fashionable world, and their
principal relaxation was to look into shop
windows at fashionable gowns and orna-
ments. to saunter through fashionable
streets at hours when well-dressed ladies
were making calls, and to wander
on Sundays among the fashionable
| churches.
Such was the condition of the Gray
ston's when Briggs Bergman, who had
been a clerk with Mrs. Grayston's father,
and afterward gone West and became
a successful merchant himself, came
East TO visit his married sister. Berry
man inquired about all his old ac-
qaintances. and was astonished at what
he heard about his old employers pretty
daughter.
"A poor widow Nobody knows much
about her now? Why, confound if,
Kate, it's enough to make man a rag
ing Communist to learn that society has
neglected such a woman
"What would you have society do,
brother?" asked the lady Take up
subscriptions to maintain Mrs. Grayston
and her three daughters in style? So
ciety has all it can do to pay its own
bills
"Society is heartless it is hog -
growIed the sturdy old fellow, and
straightway he set ont to find his
EMPLOYERS daughter. He was both
shocked and delighted at what he saw;
Mrs. Grayston's beauty and spirits had
departed. and her home was painfully
plain compared with the great, well
furnished house of her father, in which
he had first met her, but her manners
were still perfect, and her daughters,
now all young women, were handsome
and refined to a degree that the damsels
in his Western town seldom reached.
Bergman returned to his sisters
house, after having prolonged his visit
to Mrs Grayston to very late hour,
and ragged anew at the mcanness and
hcartlessness Of New York society.
"Those girls, said he, " have hand
somer faces, better figures d more
pleasing manners than any of the young
omen that come here to see YOU
daughters. / say it's an outrage thai
they're bound to needle pud thread al
day. Kate, why don't you fix them N
SO that marrying men may sec them =
% Because We prefer to find husbands
for our own daughters, I suppose,
, laughed Berry, Ians sister
g Yes. I suppose you do, said Bcur
! man. Dut men aren't so selfish. I've