The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-11-08
VOLUME II.
A HIDDEN LOVE.
Romance and PathOs Prettiiy bi"h-
ded at the Grave.

Romance and PathOS PfettIiy biHh
ded at the Grave.
Macon Telegraph.
The room is quiet, the faithful watch
ers muff1e their steps and talk in whiS'
pered monotones. The patient sufferer
on the bed is dying. \ gasp, slight
struggle, then the soul and clay dis
solves. A bit OF Grape on the door, the
bell toles, the cask is lowered into the
grave, the sections spade fashions the
new earth into q mound, and all is over.
As turn away from the last resting
place of a woman who had lived for sixty
years or more without changing her
name, memory is busy peering through
the wells that had fallen like so many
mantIes of snow upon her fondest hopes.
Forty years ago, How nimble-footed
is memory. Back into the past it swiftly
travels, quick as the flash of lightning,
and yet read every milestone in that
long journey.
Forty wears ago she was one among
the most beautiful of MacOn's fairest
women. The chivaIry of that time wor-
shipped at her shrine, and many gallant
knight sued for her smile. But though
she was the toast of the city, she neVe
married, and the eossips wondered and
wondered.
The years flew by, the roses in her
fair cheeks went away, and frost fell
upon the once glorious wealth of hair.
But the gossips never knew why, at the
e RI fol a
coffin bore her maiden name. That rO-
nance was interviewer in her life, there
was no doubt, but her lips never revealed
the secret of the unmatde heart.
There is no tenderness about the hand
of the law. Its grasp is firm, and it han
dies the poor gentlewoman as roughly
as it does the ruffian. 1t dives as deep
into the love-letters, the tresses of haIr,
and the faded violets as it does iutO the
captured booty of the burglar. 1t is the
law, the law must be obeyed, and the
footsteps of the administrators rcsound
through the cold, tenantless rooms of
the old masd's home.
The veil has been torn away. Out
from an old trunk filed with bundles
and letters, tied with a blue ribbon and
stained with the maiden's tears, the
sacred secrets tumbled. What ban
quet for the gossips!
The administrator unties the ribbon,
and the love-lctters of the girls golden
Iong-ago fall out in n heap on the floor
as the white petals fell one by one out
of the roses of her life. He picks up
one and reads. Then another. And
yet another He is reading the heart
history, the sweet love, the bitter grief,
the blighted hopes of woman whose hand
once white and soft, and sued for by the
flower of Georgia's chivalry forty years
ago, now rests hard, cold and wrinkled
i'm peace across her breast.
The administrator stoOps and picks up
another paper. 1t is a marriage license'
Coupled with her name is that of Il man
whom Macon honored us good and
worthy citizen, but whose grave has been
kept green by his children for many
wears What turn of fate left blank
untitled in the marriage license issued
forty years ago? What strange fantastic
shapes doth destiny assume!
am ON good terms with the admins
tratoa. He has closed the doors of the
tenantiess house. and l walk by his side,
as he tells me what | have just related
to you.
What came between her and her first
love will never be known. He won her
hand, and the license was procured; but
why they were never married is secret
that was buried with her. Afterward
she had three more sweethearts, and
they were in the army. Each was killed
in battle, one after the other. There is
no evidence that she ever loved again.
There are many people in Macon who
will recognize in the above lady whose
fault was that she was just the least bit
eccentric.