News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-01-24

enjoy theater or lecture never enters
his mind but such amusements seem
to be necessary to his happiness STILL"
These and many other remarks not
complimentary to Mr.. Weldon were
freely INDUCED in by their talkative
| friends.
But had they really known under
what suppression Mrs. Weldon's high
spirits were kept, they would have been
greatly surprised.
Mr.. Weldon did not mean to treat his
wife unkindly, but if he had only taken
a peep at her end of the telescope.
Only married q year, and yet it
seemed lifetime to Leila.
One evening when sitting alone she
heard Mr.. Weldon's step earlier than
usual.
A wave of gladness swept over her
face, then it died away, and hard,
bitter light crept into those glorious
eyes.
She started as if to meet her husband,
then sat down as she YEARLY thought
that it was of no use; he would only
frown at her childishness.
But somehow a different spirit seemed
to actuate Mr.. Weldon.
AS he came in he looked half pity
ingly at the quiet woman sitting there,
then said, with assumed lightness
Cant you kiss a fellow, Leila, when
he comes home earlier than usual ?"
Mrs. Weldon was somewhat sur
prised, but she answered, coldly:
81 hardly think it would be becoming
to my dignity as a married woman"
A sort of frown gathered on Mr.. Wei
don's face, but he crossed the room to
where she sat in her pride.
Leila" he said, tenderly. ga boy
brought telegram to my office to-day
that said that Lily was dead
Leila knit her slender hands convul-
sively together, and repeated the words
slowly, as though scarcely comprehend
ing their meaning.
Lily was Lelia's older sister, and Mr..
Weldon remembered the grave, pallid
girl who was introduced to him at their
wedding rs ''Sister Lily"
And he had wondered how anyone,
and especially Lelia's sister, could grow
sospiritless.
Her husband was grave reticent man
that Weldon had admired for his change
less dignity, but he could not help con-
trasting the impetuous tiger-lily and the
white wilted lily, as he called the two
sisters.
Now Lily was dead.
She had died at her mothers home,
where she had been for month or two,
with mother to care for her.
The first tears that Leila shed for her
sister Lily was when she saw her lying
in the hushed room, with its soft per-
fume of flowers, its white and black
drapery and its awful stiffness.
Not the man who had been called her
stay and support in life knelt beside her
Aforementioned casket, but the one
who had cared for the child and guarded
the girlhood of the sleeper, watched
alone by all that was mortal of poor,
pallid Lily.
While Mr.. Weldon stood silently by.
he was shocked at the growing likeness
between the face of dead Lily and that
of his Leila.
There was grand funeral next day.
Lily's husband was there, carefully
dressed in the excess of mourning; his
tears did not moisten the marble face of
the bird that had flown from him forever.
But he was one of those individuals
who consider an outside expression of
any emotion as an evidence of weakness,
so he never betrayed what he really
felt.
When the lost clods had fallen on all
that was mortal of poor Lily the mourn
ers dispersed.
The bereaved husband went methodi-
cally back to his old duties, began life
again, and he only thought that it was
dispensation of Providence.
Mr.. Weldon was kind-hearted and
sympathetic, and strange thought came
to him.
What if his Leila were dead?
And then a great wave of pity moist
ened his eyes and made his heart ache
for Lily's husband.
Ills wife and mother were with him,
and he said:
''Do you not feel sorry for poor Ar
thur ?"
A hard, bitter light came into the
sorrowing mothers eyes as she answered
him.
Feel sorry for him-her murderer
Do You think 1 could feel grief for the
man to whom [ gave my first born to
love and cherish, gave her to him believ-
ing that he would make her happy?
But instead, he brought her back to me
in five short years to die. And she was
my beautiful Lily, not by any
crime that law can punish, that would
have been quicker and more merciful,
but by the slow torture that killed her,
our queen Lily, as we called her, in five
years."
Weldon was shocked.
He had never heard of such thing.
and Mrs. Everett continued:
"'Tis the drop by drop of little ills
hat wear away the most invincible bar
,ier, and our Lily was once just like
Leila, though only those who knew her
hen would believe it. But if you had
Known under what constant suppression
our queen Lily was kept you would not
nave wondered at the change. When
,he had only been the bride of half
year she suffered keenly that worst of
pains, the headache; and she grew to
'ealize fully that mans love is of mans
ife part, but woman's whole existence.
It was a slow but sure way that Arthur
Warden took to tame his bride, but she
could not be curbed. She and Leila were
away all the joyousness he took away
Ter gay spirits, and that is death in the
md to all natures like our Lily's. There
vas never a time when Arthur failed to
made cynical remarks; in truth he kept
ny love-cherished child under a con-
inual cloud of disapprobation. If she
aughed, she was silly; if she enjoyed
jociety, she was frivolous; if she wanted
pretty, she was just like all the |
care for anything but |
lress; if a noted person spoke to her and |
he mentioned the fact, she was vain be- |
,ause those above her noticed her; and |
she spoke to anyone under the ban of |
ociety, she was told that no lady spoke |
o such person. And oh, it was won
lerful what an effect it all had on her,
,ur darling! She who had laughed to !
corn all restraint from a lover now
yielded meekly; but she was crushed, |
lot curbed. She had grown tired of fruit |
ess resistance, and now the sequel of it |
III is told by the folded hands and silent |
fps of my murdered child Murdered |
he same as many another will be that |
are on the torture rack to-day; and yet |
40 man ever thinks that he is treating |
his wife unkindly. But men have such |
peculiar ways of showing their affection
for those that are nearest and dearest.
Arthur began to think that Lily must
be ailing, he brought her home to gain
strength; but she died, and he, her muir
derer, is to-day receiving the coincidence
of scores of pitying friends p
All, how every word of Mrs. Everett's
struck home
Had not Mr.. Weldon's treatment of
r clio haoJo oIoOcE on oY1iEo,,oa oF A.IIr,.,