News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-03-12
''that girl" grew more distasteful to her


asked, as they sat over their tea. An
Jim answered that he hadn't thought O
il.
"Pd go if was you, and take you
Cousin Miranda" said the old lady
'She expects it, I guess" And Jim
only moved by the remembrance of Mel
lie Barlow, and wish to make her ieal
GUS, agreed to the proposition. He tool
Miranda to the picnic next day, and Mel
lie was there, and saw them together
and remembering her note, written in
moment of softness, when the wish to re
call certain angry words she had said tt
Jim, was strong upon her, she grew sicl
with shanle.- She had held out her hanG
In reconciliation. and he had not taken
it. Could anything make woman more
indignant? After that she never even
looked at him.--------=----- -sl
Old Mrs. Wadsworth having kept
Jim's letter few days, felt that too
much explanation would be necessary
were she to give it to him after so long
delay. Besides it would be we'll for
her son that he should not see it. He
would, of course, marry his cousin Mi.
randa-only second cousin--a girl she
| liked, and who would never set herself
up above her mother-in-law-a girl who
did not, like poor Nellie, look aggrava-
tingly stylish.
But Jim did not marry Miranda. No
one will ever know now whether Miranda
would have accepted him or not. After
awhile she married Mr.. Wiseman, who
was better off than Jim, and old enough
to be his father; and Nelly, too, mar
ried. While her heart burnt with re-
sentiment against her old lover, she
chose a new one, dark, moody, silent
sort of man, who carried her away to
| the city, whence there came rumors now
and then that she was not happy, that
| her husband led wild life. Once
some one declared that he was a very
mailman in his jealousy, and locked her
in her room at times. But no one
knew whether it was true or not. Her
parents would never say anything about
her.
As for James Wadsworth, he had
gone to church to see her married an6
had gone home with headache. The
next day he was delirious; brain fever
had set in and the doctors shook their
heads over him. What he said in his
delirium only his mother understood;
but if she could have undone the deed
that she had done, she would have
thanked Heaven. For weeks he lay at
deaths door, and then a pale shadow
crept about the house-the wreck of
bright, handsome Jim Wadsworth. His
beauty was gone, and no one felt quite
sure about his mind. He answered
sensibly enough when he was spoken to,
but voluntarily he never spoke.
After awhile he grew strong enough te
do farm work, and did what his mother
suggested, and she grew used to his al
tered ways. And so matters rested
when, ten years from her wedding-day,
Nelly came back to her fathers home in |
a widows cap. And the people of
Kornhill learnt that her husband, was
dead, and began to wonder whether he
had left her money.
Jim, blowing in the adjoining field,
saw her as she sat upon the old home
stead porch, and stood, for moment,
staring at her. Then he left his pillow in
in the furrow, his horses standing
where they were, and went home. His
mother saw him coming. He tramped |
over the beds of vegetables, and trod
down the young corn. He sought no
path. AS the bee flies he sought the
doorway at which his mother stood
staring at him, and walked into the
kitchen past her without look.
"Jim, my boy," said the old,,woman,
stwhat is it ?"
He made her no answer; but went to |
his room and straight to bed. For
hours he never spoke to her. Then he |
began to babble. He uttered Nelly's |
name; he reproached her with incon-
stancy; he called her tender names in |
one breath and cursed her in the next. |
Then he gave one wild cry and sprang |
up in his bed and dropped back again,
with his eyes, staring toward heaven.
He was dead; the mother knew that be- |
fore they told her SO.
The next day a coffin stood in the |
low-ceiled parlor, and in it lay a pale
statue with closed eyes-all that was
left of Jim Wadsworth. One by one |
the friends and neighbors came softly in
to look at him, and went away more |
softly, often in tears. At last came one
woman-a fair woman. in a widows |
cap and veil who stood longer than the |
rest looking at the still, white face, and |
at her own request was left alone with |
It, while curious people in the other |
room wondered whether it was true that |
Nelly and Jim were once engaged and |
had quarreled. For this was Nelly, in
her widows weeds, who had come to
look at Jim for the last time.
AS she stood there, with thoughts for
which there was no words trooping |
through her mind, an inner door opened
and an old woman crept in. 1t was
Mrs. Wadsworth, broken down at last,
and with the strange, restless light of
an unsettled intellect in her light blue
eyes.
She held an old letter in her hand,
and it rustled as she slowly crossed the
room and stood beside the coffin.
"Jim," said she, "here's your letter.
I've been thinking it over, and since
you take it so hard, you'd better have
it. 1 only KEEP it for your own good,
Jim. She amt the girl for you; but you
take it SO hard. Wake up, Jim; here's
your letter."
But the white, frozen hands lay still
upon the breast, and other small, living
woman's hands grasped it instead.
Nelly knew all the story now.
'Here is your letter, Jim," she whis-
pered. "Oh, Jim, Jim," and she laid
it softly under the white flowers upon
the bosom, and, STOPPING, kissed the
waxen hands and brow. ooh, Jim,
Jim |" she said again, and let her black
veil down over her face, and went her
way; and the gossips who stared after