Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1885-02-07
TRUE AS GOLD.

We called him Lord John in our
school days, he was so aristocratic,
but John Lord was the way it was in
the hantisnaal register in the old Bellaire
eplscopal chhrch. A proud fam ly, too,
with plenty i-s -.,apnr. a family that
had sent sofiiers to the "--S,.tt5u } anu and
statesmen to congress; family that
seldom descended to mean things; the
natural leaders of the old-country aris-
tocracy.
1t was twenty-five years ago that we
played together, the boys OF the old
Huygecamp private school, and Lord
John, with his proud, slender form,
his brilliant eyes, his curly hair of dark
auburn, was l6 that year. Old Col.
Lord and his wife visited him with
their daughter. Lord Johns sister, q
belle of Newport and Washington
since, but tf"n only fair-haired child
of II. The old colonel brought out 4
great hamper of cakes and chicken
and iellies and homemade confection-
cry. and gave it smiling to Lord John
''for you and your schoolmates, my
son."
Ten years passed and Lord John was
almost the only one who stayed by the
Bellaire homestead in the heart of love
ly Maryland. Whatever possessed
him to fly in the face of his training
and 90 over to Rallsville, the homely
little factory village, and fall in love
with Mary Becton, l don't know. She
was pretty thing, the daughter of a
farmer somewhere along the Sus9uehan-
ma. She had only been ut work a few
months in the factory, where, indeed,
the Lord family owned most of the
stock. She was uneducated, but girl
of unusual powers of mind, resolved
to make something of herself. Nobody
knows what passed between them or
what promises Lord John made her,
but brought up as she had been to feel
that there was & great gulf between
the ..higher and lower" classes of So
ciety, 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 he covered his tracks so well that,
when he grew tired of poor Mary, and
courted and won famous New Or
leans heiress and beauty, the story
about the Beeton girl was 4 long time
in reaching the ears of the interested
parties. At last, just the day before
the wedding, the proud young Creole.
in whose veins the best French, Span
ish and American blood flowed, was
in the summcr-house on the hill over
looking the Chesapeake. She was
troubled and unhappy; her feelings
toward Lord John had slowly changed,
for there was a lack OF devotion on his
part that boded ill for the future. She
admired his brilliancy and that was al
Into the arbor stepped worn and
fady beauty and confronted the proud
Creole.
"Are 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.
Augevine Dutot bade 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
wrongei woman. and returned to the
house that of her rrelatiyes-where she
had been spending the summer. She
"IOlc Il ltlltI ~ Lulu OOuH, oni q AC"
lines, advising him to marry Mary
Beeton. She told the servants to pack
her trunks and send them after her;
and within two hours she was on her
way to New Orleans with her faithful
maid and small hand-valise for lug
gage. That was the way she cut the
Gordian knot-a heroine l call her,
and, what is more to the point, thor
oughly practical woman. When she got
back to New Orleans she sent for her
lawyer, and told him to put a trust
worthy detective 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 a woman's life any
more than it does mans. II she is re-
pentent. if elements Of good yet re-
main, shall take care Of her, even
though he refuses to marry her. She
has been cast like sea-waif across my
track, and l cannot ignore my plain
duty. Under any circumstances she
shall have some sort OF a chance again,
but my identity must, of course, remain
concealed forever. -