, 1884-05-30

tie the inot, and sufficient witnesses.
she suggested that he had better re-
ceipt the bill he made. out for services.
as in event Of his death-which heaven pre-
vent-it might fall into the hands of some
one who might use it to the detrintopt of her
darling baby. Everything will be yours,
anyway said she, smiling through her
tears.
He was only to glad to do it. What did he
care for that bill, now that he was to come
in possession of the entire property True it
was real estate, and true he, as her husband,
had no right to it, but it would be queer il he
could not find a way to transfer the broad
acres to himself in the course of time.
Mr.. Abner Smith felt better than ne had at
any time since he left Connecticut.
The paper was duly receipted and the
preacher arrived and the twain were made
one flesh.
The n~ewly-mnde husband, having no nom
sense about him, went gladly out to his
fields; his now, indeed, and the wife, the
innocent little thing, after some preliminary
work which she did privately in her own
room, ordered her pet horse saddled and
rode f%uriously to the county-seat, which was
only a few miles distant.
What happenell Why, Mr.. Abner Smith
was arrested in his fields and taken to the
couuty-seat, and was hauled up before a
justice of the peace, and confronted with
his wife, who charged him with the greatest
cruelty towards her. Her story was
told in a perfectly innocent and
Straightforward manner, and a flood of
tears added additional weight. With a voice
broken with emotion she averred that within
ten minutes after the departure of the
clergyman who married them he had de-
munded of her certain sums of money which
he suspected her of having and certain papers
which belonged to her deceased husband, and
on her refusal to deliver them up had as
saulted her and beaten herin the most brutal
manner. Of that she had been SO deceived
And to verify her statements she pulled up
the sleeve of her dress and showed a beautiful
arm blue with bruises, and exhibited a lock
of raven hair which she Rverred he had torn
from her head.
In vain he denied it, and swore that it was
a trick. A trick She the most innocent of
women; she, who could not say her soul was
her own, guilty of u trickl Nonsense. The
court did not have time to pronounce upon
the case. The bystanders who did not like
him and never had, took the matter in their
own hands. They led him out and would
have hung him, but for the intercession of
the outraged wife. She pleaded that his life
be spared on condition that he give her such
documents as would give her a divorce at
once, and disgorge the money she knew he
had stolen from her during his three years
management.
He refused to do any thing of the kind, for
a man of that peculiar kind will do anything
before he will give up money once he has his
clutch upon it, but a rope over the limb of a
tree is a rare persunder.
He agreed to do it. And then the innocent
little woman suggested that the story about
the failure of the cotton-house might be a de-
~ception-that it was possible that he had sold
the cotton and had the money concealed.
This he denied, but when the rope was adj
justed about his neck and it frightened about
his throat, he confessed that he had lied
about it; that he did it to force the innocent
and guileless woman into a marriage, and, UNI
der the same influence, he told them where
that money with his other populations was
concealed.
Then he promised to leave the country and
never be seen in it again, and they permitted
him to depart. 1t is needless to say that he
kept his promise Of never appearing in that
country again.
The innocent little woman went home feel
ing very much relieved, and some years after
married a very good man, who did not beat
her, and to him she confessed that her second
husband, Mr.. Smith, had not beaten her,
either; that the bruises she inflicted upon her.
self; and that the hair had not been torn,
but skillfully cut from her head, all by her
self
But what was 1 to DOR she asked inno-
Gently. 81 was alone in the world; that
snake had everything in his own hands; and
| had to do something to get back what he
had robbed me of. L was too weak and ig-
norant to protect m~yself-that is, as other
women do.n
The moral to this is that the women who
look the most innocent are not always as in
nocent as they look.