The Dickinson press., 1884-12-13

piASS tAlAC hllO L OCkdus
And the boy who kissed his mother,
Is every inch a man! .
Christian ntelligencer.
TRUE AS GOLD.
We called him Lord John in our
school days, he was so aristocratic a
youth, but John Lord was the way it
wa in the baptismal register in the old
Bellaire Episcopal Church. A proud
family, too, with plenty of money, and
enough dignity to carry it; a family
that had sent soldiers to the Revolution
and statesman to Congress, and about
whose hospitable board the best of the
land assembled on great occasions; vet
withal a family that had instincts and
training, a courtly noble race, that sell
dom descended to mean things, the nat
ural leaders of the old country aristocra-
cy.
1t was twenty-five years ago that we
played together, the boys of the old
Huygencamp private school, and Lord
John with his proud, slender form, his
brilliant eyes, his curly hair of dark
auburn, was sixteen that year. His
birthday came in term time, and old
Colonel Lord and his wife visited him
with their daughter, Lord Johns sister, a
belle of Newport and Washington since,
but then only a fair-haired child. of
twelve. The old Colonel brought out
a great hamper of cakes and chicken
and %jellies and homemade confectionery,
and gave it smiling to Lord John "for
you and your schoolmates, my son." If
the Colonel had been able to look fifteen
years along the current of years he was
the man to have felt like giving his son
q pistol bullet or ten grains Of strych-
nine, just to keep him from being a
disgrace to the proud old family.
Ten years passed; Lord John was
the wealthiest and handsomest young
man in the region and might have had
his pick of girls from New England or
from the Sunny South-of Senator's or
of millionaires' daughters. For there
was that about him which made him at
t~ractive to every n The rest of the
boys had scattered, some in business,
some plain farmers, some had become
regular globe-trotters; Lord John was
almost the only one who staid by the
Bellaire homestead in the heart of love-
ly Maryland.
Whatever possessed Lord John to fly
in the face of his training and go over
to Rallsville, the homely little factory
village, and fall in love with Mary Bee
ton, 1 don't know. She was certainly a
pretty thing, appealing eyes and modest
ways, the daughter of a farmer some
where along the Susquehanna, and had
only been at work flew months in the
factory where, indeed, the Lord family
owned most of the stock. They say
she was uneducated, but a girl Of un-
usual powers of mind; you go there to-
day and people will tell you of Mary's
resolve to make something Of herself.
Nobody knows what passed between
them or what promises he made her,
but brought up as she had been, to feel
that there was a great gulf fixed be-
tween the "higher and lower" classes of
society. there could at last be only one
result-the poor girl yielded.
They say that Lord John took her to
Baltimore and kept her there awhile,
but lie covered his tracks so we'll that
when he grew tired of poor Mary, and
courted and won q famous New Orleans
heiress and beauty, the story about the
Beeton girl was o long time in reach
ing the ears of interested parties. At
last just the day before the wedding,
the proud young Creole, in whose veins
the best of French, Spanish and Ameri-
can blood flowed, was in the summer
house on tue hill overlooking the broad
Chesapeake. She was troubled and
unhappy; her feelings towards Lord
John had slowly changed, for there was
a lack Of devotion on his part that BODIED
i'll for the future. She admired his
brilliancy and that was all.
Into the arbor stepped a worn and
faded beauty and confronted the proud
Creole.
care you going to marry Lord John?"
she cried. "Then ask him at the altar
who Mary Beeton is" and she turned
to leave the place.
Angcvine Dutot babe her pause and
asked her with cold serenity the reason
for her words, satisfied herself of the
truth of the story from letters in her
betrothed's handwriting, dismissed the
wronged woman and returned to the
housc-that of her relatives-where she
had beed spending the summer. She
wrote q letter to Lord John, only a few
lines, advising him to marry Mary
Beeton. She told the servant to pack
her trunks and send them after her;
and within two hours she was on he.
way to New Orleans with her faithful
maid and a small hand valise for lug
gage. That was the way she cut tho
gordian knot-a heroine I call her, ant!
what is more to the point, thoroughly
practical woman. When she got back
to New Orleans she sent for her lawye,
and told him to put o trustworthy de-
t%ective on the track of Mary Beeton and
find out all about her.
"Why. asked the lawyer, an old and
tried friend.
because one sin should not wreck 8
woman's If. any more than it does {.
mans. If she is %repentant, if element,
of good Yet remain, 1 shall take care q:
her, even though he refuses to NARY
her. She has been cast like o sea wal
across nv track, and l cannot ignore my