Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1886-05-23

aboat and tried gravity and serious Fe'ho4-
s,rauce; put with no better result. Accord. |
ingly MIR. Brent was somewhat surprised
when, about ak months after his son s de-
psrtare Sophia asked him Il sbe co1Id be
Of sny use to him in the parish or the Sun
da7 school. OF course he accepted her
offer gladly. And capital teacher ana
punctual visitor be found her. But MT
Brent noticed that at their various h'ue
meetings Sophia would mausge to hnger
until the other ladies were gone, then she
would talk bit, and somehow the taid al
ways veered sbcut till,it settled on Perclval,
when Sophia would ask few questions
and be gone Even little Mr.. Brent, VINO
was not an observer Of things, sometimes
felt that these two or three little sentences
about PerciVal we're with Sophia the onh,
ness of the day. At az earlier period OF
his career be would have broken many a
lest upon this discovery; but jests we're oy'
zones with our poor rector. The Twinkle
had fallen from bis eye, and the bhtheness
had sunk out Of his tone. A psllor was
stealing over his face, and he was fast turn
ing gray. As che Of his Pensioners wh9
made her living by laundry work said, he
looked like a gown that had been TO the
wash" the colorS hsdrun; what renamed
was himself and not himself.
And now, disregsrding for o moment
our small chronology, let me dismiss the
rector from this tale, where, indeed, be has
little more 10 do.
Poor Sophia chung to him more than
most of his parishioners and she found q
real pleasure in his society, because 1t
seemed to be kind of remote contact with
Psrcivsl. The bedroom where Percival
had slept from boyhood was in that house.
The books he had read were on the shelves
Here he used to sit at dinner. There was
the garden walk where he was wont to
saunter with his pipe She knew the very
peg where bis hat used to hang. Somehow
he did not seem quite so far away when she
wasin the precintg OF his own home, aud the
reotors dispirited talk had q certain liveli-
ness for her, because he was Perciyars ia
ther. OccasionIy. too, she would get a
glimpse at her absent lad himself For in
stance, one day, as they were walking to-
gether to the garden gate, the rector said ::
percy planted that rose.
Next week es they went the same way,
Sophia stopped beside the rose tree to pluck
off a few withered leaves and make the
plsnt look trim. Mr.. Brent, stopping with
her said in his distracted way:
"Iuever told you; PerciVal planted that
rose
He never told her! Why, BY that time
she knew how many leaves were on it, aud
could SPELL its name and knew its prospect
of life having become for Perclval's sake
perfect horticultural Gctusry.
The another dGy the rector said listessly
for he never joked with her about his
son, ana indeed seemed only to have q
faint remembrance of that connection.
II heard from Percy this morning;
would you like to hear his letter.
Sophia, who wonld have lived on bread
and water for week rather than lose one
line her darling wrote, said, trying with a
miserable sffectatiou to initiate the rector g
apathstic tone:
Yes. if it il not troubling you.
perhaps" Mr. Brent said, "as You don't
ssem greatly to care for it, we need not
read this one, but wait for the nest"
He ssid this qvite inQOcently, bit he put
Sophiain dreadful fix With the instinct
of true generslship, however, she resolved
to recover her Lost position by bold stroke.
Il would not n,iss hearing 1t for the
world she said sudaciously. 20, do read
| it."
And the rector, looking up with faint
smile, like q mau who remembers some
thing, took the letter out and read it through
In none of these lstters did Percy mem
ton her name, until three years after his
departure. when one day therector read thia
line: III you eUsr see He.gjrl 1ch 'caS
snee my 1.-THE Sophia, gire her my Tore.
He read it mechanically, az he did every,
thing now; then. holding the letter with
loose fingers, it slipped from him and skim,
med down under the table and presently
he waa called from the room Sophia
dropped on her knees and caught the sheet
up, aud read the line again:
"Ifyou crer see the girl who was once
mn Htls Sophia, gire her my 'ore
Bless me- how she kissed that sheet 1t
got all the love kisses that had been ripeu-
ing on her lips for ak and thirty months
Had it been the age Of transformation that
sheet would hsv, surely turned into low.
er under the transmitting power OF those
kisses. And then Miss Sophia, who had a
terribly tender conscience of her own, look.
ed at the letter, and colored up at certain
suggestion of her own mind, aud wondered
would it be very wrong, and would the rec
tor ever find it out, and was 1t very mean
of her to do it in the hope that he would
neverGn it out2 And, deciding on action
she nicely tore off the finest little morsel
Of tbs paper, where On the last line these
precious words we're inscribed and she
slipped the shred into her watch case
where she could look at it night and morn
ing. The little girl that was my Sophia
that it isl that shall be until you bid ime
cease u" che said thousand times, as if that
moTsel Of paper we're his living spokesman
Truly, the girl was very IlucL in love, and
absence made her hearty row fonder, which
is not usual with male or female hearts,
unless see the world wrongly altogether.
About this time Sophia-snd not Sophia
saly, but all Of us-began to notice that
Mr. Brent looked paler than usuAl, walked
with slight drag OF his tight foot, and
sometimes missed word ont of a sentence
without being aware Of it. Again, he
would observe the mistake, and correct it
with sn appearance OF irritation. Drain
mischief going on" old Sparkes whispered.
Aud he was right; for one Sunday evening,
sitter preaching, the rector
suddenly became speechlsss in the vestry,
aud Lost his power o. Glot;5n. Ee never
spoke syllable again; and even when he
opened his eyes there was no reason in
them. A dreadful storm of wind and rain
came on that night, Cnd blew tie golden
cock from of the church s;eeple, and some
masonry whit, The tempest ragged round
the rectory garden, sad uprotted two great
elm trees, and csst them across the lawn in
gigantic ruin. Meanwhile the rector lay
90 quiet as il C summer breeze was blow
ing, There was no storm mat could roar
loud enough to disturb his sleep. And in
the morning, when we swoke to see what
the wind had done in cur gardens and
parks, We heard that our kind hearted little
rector had departed from Us forever, JRst
while the storm was uttering its hercest