The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-08-08

believed with the sleepless tears of that
fountain SO long and mysteriously asso.
ciated with the object of his contempla-
ton and worship. Needless to add
that the sweet little nook of secular
soil had previously been consecrated
according to the most solemn and
punctual rites Of that church to which
the august deceased had belonged. Not
until after an interval of many years
was the mystery cleared up, when the
abbey, with all its fair, broad land,
passed, by voluntary sale, into the JOS
session of lay proprietors at the COM
mencement of the Region Of Terror, A.
d. 1893.
"Then it was that amid a heap of
supposed rubbish and paper-ass es, ac-
%cidentally d~iscoveredin a long-neglected
lumber-closet, a ceruain old Dry-as-dust,
with tastes akin to my own, ferreted
out a sere, ~half-legible document
bearing the signature of the Rev. Faith
er Bernardin, who had succeeded to
the Lord Abbot, after acting as confess
sor and confident of his last moments.
"The mystery of the Abbot's grave
was at last solved thus: In the earlier
half of the eighteenth century the
young, wealthy, and handsome Count
Robert OF Nice, wealy of playing the
Prodigal Sons part, and having lately
Inherited a fine ancestral estate, be-
thought him seriously of taking him
self a wife, and settling down into a
stald Benedict for the remainder of his
three.score years and ten. He there
fore made offer of his hand and heart
to a young lady of a rank corresponding
to his own-one Mademoiselle st Val
lier, likewise of the county of Nice,
whose parents, ut first ~favorlng the al
lance, but subsequently yielding to
the suggestions of unexplained caprice,
withdrew their sanction at the eleventh
hour of courtship. The result of the
shock on the young lady's system was
alike unforeseen and alarming. Begin
ming with the temporary alteration of
reason, it had well-nigh eliminated in a
fatal catastrophe. The terrified and re-
morseful parents were now induced to
retract their ill-tlme and irrational
opposition. The lovers renewed their
intercourse. But the blow to Mile.
st Walters constitution was to radi-
cal to admit of speedy cure.
"Still. as no dangerous symptoms re-
vealed themselves to the careful and
minute investigation of experienced
physicians, it was agreed that the slow,
but, as was fondly hoped, certain pro-
cess of recovery would best be seconded
by a speedy contamination of the mar
riage tie.
"The nuptial day was fixed. All the
preliminaries and formalltles were duly
accomplished. The marriage feast was
provided. The guests were hidden,
andhad joyfully answered the
of the ever-welcome bridal bell The
metropolitan church of Santa Reparata,
in the centre of what is now the old
town of NizZa la Bella, was the chosen
theatre wherein Monsignor the Bishop
himself-for tono less a dignitary could
SO august a ceremonial be entrusted
was to consecrate the union of the love-
LEST and noblest bridal pair which had
ever received the Episcopal benediction
at the hymeneal altar and been
clasped in the church's indissolu-
bic love-links. The April sun shone
with a merry smile through the rose
tinted tears. In a word, "all went mer-
ry as o marriage bell" But the sullen
distant echoes of that bell were, per-
haps m%ercifully, yet inaudible to the
ear of youth and hope, though the
breath of memorable fate was even now
shadowing the horizon. Never lad
bride smiled fairer ~orlovliar smile-nev-
er had gallent night uplifted prouder
brow. Nay-as if to crown the propi-
tious auspices with every favoring cir
cumstance of luck or providence-never
had fair lady's fond and now frankly
%consenting parents worn q happier or
more hopeful aspect. In a word, there
could hardly have been amore inauspic-
ious moment for the inevitable prophet
of evil to point his lean and menacing
finger toward that sunny horizon, where
"a cloud no bigger than a mans head"
was slowly but surely struggling up
ward, like an electric storm cloud.
against the bonny blithesome breeze of
this happy April morning.
"But the festive hour was at hand.
The spacious choir of the ancient
Church at st. Reparata was flooded
with beauty and chivalry,' fair women
and brave men, while the grand music
of the monster organ burst forth in that
'volnptuous SWELL whose vocal waves
float upward all that is least mortal in
the human soul. The wedding mass
had begun. Now, for the first time
vas it casually remarked by some of
the bystanders that the brilliant car
nation of the brides .habitually pale
cheeks, and the almost unnatural glow
in her normally placid and reticent eyes,
were tell-tales of a portentous degree
Of moral exaltation and harbingers of
a corresponding reaction. And that was
all!
"That impressive climax in the mar
riage service was finally reached
when the venerable p~relate, joining
their hands together in his own, pro-
nounces the nuptial VOW of mutual and
lifelong fidelity, which is repeated after
him by man and wife alternately. The
count had already fulfilled his part of
the contract, and his spouse, with 6
voice of surprising decision and almost
s%uperhuman energy and resonance, was
Iii her turn a~rticulating the solemn
pledge, when her strength seemed sud-
denly to fail her, and as she vainly
strove to enunciate the final words
Until death do us part Repeating
the effort, a second time did the words
die away in her throat, when with an
hysterical laugh and defiant air, ard
drawing a deep breath which struck on
the ear of the bystanders like a passing
sigh, she uttered with almost o shrek,
the fateful words, 'Until-death-us
-do-partr! An instant later, and,
clasping her hand to her heart, with a
whisper Amen she fell forward into
the arms of the count-a ~lifeless bride /.
only few years after this event the
gate of the Benedictine Abbey of ST. Dali