News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-04-01

| ulduuGu.
with its solid furniture and its familiar
appointments, became hers; and within
months time the Templeton family
had removed from their narrow home IN
side street to the spacious home of
Maria's childhood on the favored side of
| Walnut Street, philadelphia. The will
Maria knew would be all right, and,
being engaged in the more congenlal
details of arranging the house for her
own family, had left this mysterious
business to her husband and the family
attorney, and that unknown but ultimate
combination, the prothonatory court and
the register of deeds.
Mr.. Templeton had told his wife each
week after their return from California
that he would bring home her mother
legacy in day or two; but full month
had passed away without the appearance
of the conventional tin box from the
| safe deposit.
| AT last, one Monday afternoon, when
Maria had returned from days busy
shopping at the grand central depot of
John Wanamaker's the conversation
with which this story began took place
in the hallway of the Walnut Street resi-
| dence.
| Aunt Amelia had come!
| Aunt Amelia was to be domesticated
in Maria Templeton's new home, and
| was to be q constant factor in the
| equation of the home life of the new
establishment.
| At breakfast, dinner and supper, on
the stairs and in the drawing room, IN
her own room and in the guest chamber,
| Nv, l,, II, Il
of winter and in the long days of sum-
mer, at every turn in existence, she,
| Martha Templeton, was continually to
behold the face of Aunt Amelia, and be
conscious of her presence, subordinating
the ways of the household to her own
| depraved and intricate will.
''No, john" she exclaimed, as the
bleaching white of the sense of ennui
took the place of the glow from the ex-
citement of shopping which was on her
cheeks as she entered the house-''no,
John, this cannot be. There must be
some mistake about 1t. My mother never
would infict such a load of care and
responsibility upon one whom she loved
so much as she did me. Let me see the
will"
John handed his wife stiff piece of
parchment from the inner pocket of his
coat, and, spreading it out upon the
piano in the parlor, laid his finger upon
the following passage:
II give and bequeath to my cousin
Amelia Burton Cranbrook, otherwise
known as Aunt Amelia, the interest on
the sum of thirty thousand dollars,
during her life, the money itself to be
given to my daughter Maria on the death
of the said Amelia Burton Cranbrook.
And it is, moreover, my wish and desire,
as the condition upon which the afore-
said sum shall descend to my aforesaid
daughter Maria Templeton, that the
aforesaid Amelia Burton Cranbrook shall
live with said daughter Maria, If the
aforesaid Maria occupies during her life
time my residence situated upon Walnut
Street, in the city of Philadelphia.
"You could move out, Maria, and go
back again to your residence on South
Nineteenth Street." said John, as he
watched the dazed look on his wife's
face; ''but then you are so comfortably
settled now that it would be a pity to
take up the carpets one week after they
have been put down. Besides, you would
have to go, every few days, to see your
Aunt Amelia at her boarding house on
Mount Vernon Street."
All further conversation about the
will was interrupted by a knock at the
drawing groom door.
''Miss Amelia wants to know if there
is any more boiled milk for her choco
late2" asked the waitress. "The milk
/ took up before was scalded; and she
says, ma'am, please not to forget her
belladonna pills, and the pepsin. And
one thing / most forgot. She wants
John to go up to her boarding. house,
and fetch down her hot water spine
bag. She left it behind when she packed
up her trunk"
"Don't let me keep you. Maria" said
her husband. ''You have been waiting
for your mothers legacy-go into the
kitchen, my dear and get 1t some hot
milk for its chocolate"
| Amelia Cranbrook, Mrs. Pentreath
Jones's cousin, otherwise known as Aunt
| Amelia, had been an invalid from her
youth. The shawl and the sofa were her
daily companions, and what had once
been her mind had now become mere
registering machine, like the clicking
! Indicator of stocks on the endless tele-
graphic slips of modern brokers' office.
| Her imagination furnished the facts for
this daily quotation of physical stocks,
and her retentive memory kept the
books of this physical, mental, and
moral firm, known as Amelia Burton
! Cranbrook.
There were intricacies in her will
which stood in vital connection with
certain mysterious integuments of her
! liver.
Her will was a complicated knot of
strange and undecipherable inconsis-
tencies, and was the outward and visible
sign of her inward and intricate nerves.
With all her physical entanglements
and nervous complications, however,
Miss. Amelia Burton Cranbrook held
what she rejoiced to call, in religious
parlance, "clear views of truth"
She thought it no wrong to read open
letters, unperceived; to feign sleep or
illness or bodily infrmity, if thereby
she could have her own way without
blame or responsibility. Objectionable
newspapers disappeared from the library
after the manner of the strange disap-
pearance of modern commercial travel
ers. Novels which upon inspection
proved to be of dangerous tendencies,
frequently furnished cheerful glow to
her room from the open fire on her
hearth, and anticipated in their condem-
ned ashes the sepulchral methods of the
modern crematory. To find out the
secrets of others, and never in turn to
be found out; to hinder the coming and
to speed the parting guest, to hunt most
zealously for balancing Providences'
in the lives of others whereby the
average happiness of humanity might be
reduced to her own lcvel-were the indi-
cations of Aunt Amelia's improved con-
dition of health which made her friends
and companions submissive to Provi-
dence whenever she was compelled to
remain for weeks in bed.
'I never can stand it, John; never
can" sobbed Maria, as she returned
with the pitcher of scalded milk in hel
hand for the invalid upstairs. 81 cannot
make it out. Just as l was beginning to
he reconciled to all this loneliness, in
fact that we had come back to the old
home, there comes this awful visitation,
this dark, black cloud on my life, which
] know my darling mother never
planned, but which some of those mlsera'
BILE LAWYERS invented for their own ease
and satisfaction. Oh, John, John! who
will rid me of my mothers legacy"
Maria Templeton burst INTO a flood OF
tears as she threw herself into her hus
bands arms and sobbed her soul ou'
with tears which were hotter, and seal
ded more effectively, than the scalded
milk in her hands.
"There, there, my darling do your
daily duty" replied her husband
''Rcmember that old motto which was