Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-05-04
MISS MARRADLE'S ELOPEMENT.
CHAPTEP L

never married and died twenty years ago
at Baden-Baden, whittier he had gone TO
drink the waters; and her two sisters,
Maria and Letitia. although they did
marry. did not live to become middle-aged
women. The elder, Maria. after becoming
the wife OF Mr.. LangtOn Larkspur, of the
nrm OF Scrip, Larkspur Il Co, bankers, Of
Ihreadneedle street, gave birth to a single
child, daughter, who was named Lucy;
and the younger, Letltia. having been led
to the altar by Mr.. Septimus Allerton, OF
the firm of Allert0n, Bond Il Benedict,
brokers, Of Pancake lane, presented her
husband with twin girls. OF whom one
Only-and she was called Amy-surYived
her extreme infancy. 1t is. therefore, not
astonishing that Miss Martha Marrable,
well-to-do woman without family ties, is
exceedingly fond of the daughters of her
two dead sisters. She usually has them
to stay with her at least twice year
once IN the early summer at her house in
GrosyenOr street; and once in the autumn
at the seaside, or in Italy, whittier she
goes occasionally, accOmpanied-to the
great wonder Of the fOTeigners-by a cOu-
Tier, a man servant, two maids, eleven
I boxes and green parrot. And as she is
very kind to her nieces and denies them
nothing, 1t is not surprising that they are
fully as fond Of her as she Is of them.
! But Miss Martha Marrable is growing
Z
Miss Amy Allerton are both young and
intend to remain so for some years to come.
1t is not, therefore, TO beeXpected that the
three ladies should invariably think eX-
actly alike on all subjects. And, indeed,
| am happy to say that there are not many
women who do agree with Miss Marrable
upon all questions; for although she is as
goOd-hearEd an old spinster as ever
breathed, she is unfortunately a man.
hater.
have looked in the dictionary to see
what the verb ''tO hate signifies, and [
find that it means Ito despise," or Ito
dislike intensely" Let it not, however.
be supposed that the word "man-hater'
is stronger one than ought to be applied
TO Miss MarraDIe; for L am really not
quite certain that it is altogether strong
enough. She regards men as inferior ami
mails and looks down upon them with
lofty contempt. "W hO,' she once said to
her niece Lucy, E'has turned the world
upside down, filled it with poverty and
unhappIness, and deluged it with blood?
1t is man, Lucy. If woman had always
governed the earth, we should have had
no Caesar Borgias, no Judge Jefferieses,
no Bonapartes and no Mana Sahibs."
And yet Miss Martha Marrable can never
see yagrant begging in the street with
out giving him aims. The truth is, that
although she detests and despises man,
she pities him; just as she pities the poor
idiot whom she sometimes sees grinning
and gibbering by the wayside in Italy.
These being her sentiments. Miss Mar
rable has not, Of course, many male ac-
quaintances. She is on good, but not af-
fectiOnate, terms with her widowed
brOthers-in-law, Mr.. Langton Larkspur
and Mr.. Septimus AllertOn. She once
year invites her man Of business, Mr.. John
Bones, Of Cooks Court, to dine with her
and them in GrOsyenOr street; and she is
civil to the rector OF her parish, and to the
medical man whom she would call in to
attend her in case Of illness. Yet Mr..
Larkspur once told Mr.. AllertOn that this
feminine dragon had had violent love
affair when she was nineteen; and Mr..
AIlertOn-whOse connection with the Mar
rable family is of much more recent d"te
than that Of Lucy's Alphabetically de-
clared that he could we'll believe it. If,
however, Miss Marrable did have a love
affair in her youth, l am not inclined at
this time Of day to cast it as a reprOach
in her teeth. Boys viii be boys; and
girls, | suppose, will be girls, though they
may live TO see the error of their ways
and be none the worse for their fOllies.
One thing is certain, and that is, that at
the present time, and for at least five-and-
twenty years past, Miss Martha Marrable
has ceased TO dream Of the tender passion.
She still occasionally talks vaguely of
going up the Nile or of visiting the Vel
lewstOne region ere she dies; but sic
never cOntemplates the possibility of get
ting married. and believe that she would
as soon think of allowing man to believe
that she regarded him with ANYTHING but
polite aversion as she would think of 60
ing into business as a steeple-jack and
learning to stand on one leg on the top Of
the cross at the summit OF st. Paul's Ca
thedral.
And vet Miss Martha Marrable was last
year the heroine of a terrible scandal:
and many Of her misdnthropic female
friends have meyer since been able to COM
pletely believe her professions of hatred of
man. The affair gave rise to many whis-
pers and was even, / understand, guard
eddy alluded to, with just and Yirtuous
depreciation, in the columns of the WO-
mans Suffrage Journal, as a terrible but
happily rare instance of womanly weak
ness and friYOlity; and since the true
story has never been told, feel that it is
only fair to tell it, and by telling it to de-
fend Miss MarFable from the dastardly
charges that have been made against her
established reputation for good sense and
unflinching contempt of the rOugher sex.
Toward the end of August Miss Maria
BILE and her two nieces left London for
North Wales, and, after a long and tire
rionethshire, and took rooms at the COrs-y
GedOl Hotel. They were accompanied, as
usual, by the two maids and the green
parrot; but the courier and the man SER
want, being males, and their services not
being imperatively required, they were
left behind in London. Lucy had just
celebrated her tWenty-third birthday and
Amy was just about to celebrate her twen-
ty-frst; and-althOugh am sorry to have
to record i'll am by no means astonished
that they were both in love. Lucy, during
the whole Of the previous season, had been
determinedly flirting with a designing
young artist named Robert Rhodes; and
Amy, younger and less experienced than
her cousin, had been carrying on, even
more sentimentallY, with Mr.. Vivian Jel-
licoe, who, being heir to a baronetcy,
found that position so arduous and ia
tiguing that he was quite untitled for any
active occupation of labOriOus charac-
ter. OF course Miss Marrable knew moth
ing of these affairs. Had she suspected
them she would perhaps have not taken
her nieces with her to AbermaW, for it
happened that at that very watering place
Sir Thomas JellicOe ana his son Vivian
were staying when the three ladies, the
two maids and the green parrot arrived.
But no foresight on Miss Marrable's part
could have prevented Mr.. Robert Rhodes
from following Lucy to North Wales.
That adventurous artist had made up his
mind to spend the autumn in Miss Lark
spurs neighborhOOd, and even if Miss
Marrable had carried off her elder niece
to Timbuctoo or the Society Islands Mr..
Rhodes would have gone after the pair by
the next train, steamboat, diligence or
caravan available.
Upon the morning, therefore, after Miss
Marrable's arrival at Abermaw she and
her nieces were comfortably installed at
the COrs-y-Gedol Hotel, while at the Red
Goat, close by, Sir Thomas Jellicoe and
Vivian occupied rooms on the first floor
and Mr.. Rhodes had bedroom on the
third.
In the course Of that afternoon Miss
Martha Marrable, accompanied by her
nieces, and followed at a respectful dis
lance by the two maids, walked in the
sunshine upon the hard sands that stretch,
for / do not know how many hundred
yards at low water, between the rocky
hills behind the little town and the margin
Of Cardigan Bay. The weather was hot
and sultry, and the unrippled sea looked
like molten lead in the glare. Much eX-
ercise was therefore out of the question,
and ere long the three ladies sat down on
the seward side of a rush-grOwn sand
hill to read, leaving the two maids t0str0ll
further if they chose to do so, and to ex-
plOre at their leisure the unaccustOmed
wonders Of the seashOre.
Miss Martha, having arranged her SUM-