The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1888-07-13
BY LOVE RECALLED.


low and looked eagerly, fearfully, in the
face above him.
1t was haughty yet frank countenance
"a face which mingled strength of Will
with pride, and tenderness with truth,
yet had enough poetic fire in it to make
the request his father made of Clarence
Livingstone a very hard one for him to
grant.
For Elmar Livingstone, dying, remem-
bered the wrongs done by him "in the
days of nature" and, recalling lucky
venture, which by enriching him had
beggared another, asked his son TO take
that others orphan daughter for his
wife.
Clarence knew nothing of the hour OF
temptation which saw his fathers fall
knew of no reason more powerful than
Christian charity which had induced his
father to adopt the penniless girl when
she was left alone in the world; and, full
Of fair dreams for his future he shrank
from marriage with one whom he had
rarely seen in his years of study and
travel, and who was only to him shy,
awkward child-no more.
Il have no love- " he answered. "Why
do you ask this OF me, my dear fathere
Make any provision you wish for Miss
Munroe, dover her as richly as Won
choose; but leave her, as I. pray you to
leave me-free. / have no love for her,
nor she for me; we are strangers. Let US
remain so, lest in mating US as you would,
You do both lives injury
''StOop down, Clarence She loves
you; you have been her hero, her idol for
years. have fostered her idolatry, for
have wished to atone for the wrong did
her; and there is but one way-to make
her the wife of my only son. My boy, you
will not refuse to make my last hour
easier?"
Father, I would purchase your peace
with my life were ii possible But there
is surely some other way than this, and /
will find it. What is the wrong Of which
You speak, l must know it since / am
10 atone; and trust me, my father, though
it take my life, will not fail to make the
atonement a complete one"
There is no other way" moaned the
sick man; land since you bid me unseal
my lips, l will tell you how 1 gained my
wealth, and planted my life with aloes of
remorse, my son. Ny cordial! The story
is not long, but very hard to tell-very
hard, my boy-for it will make you blush
for your father
And, while the summer night closed in
gray and spectral, Clarence Livingstone,
listening to his fathers story of credu-
!Ous friend betrayed, and wealth snatched
from a too-trusting hand, bent his young
head in a humiliation wholly new and
wholly intolerabIe to him.
Without, in the clustering shadows of
The veranda. dropping like a lily on its
stem, stood Lena Nunroe, drinking in the
ale with pulses beating as strongly as
hose in the breast of her Clarence, IN her
OWN girlish bosom, pain as keen, regret
L r I. L
stone as second father, and felt the sin
Of the dying as keenly as the wrong done
the dead.
Besides, another pang was hers-for
Clarence had begged his father not to
ask him to be more than a stranger to
her!
The story was told, and the old man lay
painting on his pillows, his face damp
with dews of coming death; and the girl,
peering into the chamber with wide pain
darkened eyes, saw Clarence on his knees
beside the couch.
Forgive me, my son; did the wrong
for you," came hoarseIy to her from the
drawn lips of the dying. MAKE her
your wife, and all will be well. She is
pure as a flower unplucked. She has
grown dear TO me as daughter; and, my
boy, she loves you!"
\ hot flush crept into her face at the
low broken words, but it died instantly,
for Clarence was replying, and she bent
her face to her hands as she listened
':She may be all you say" came in the
clear tones of the young man; but she is
no more TO me than flower which have
no wish to gather II she loves me it is
with n childish love, which viii not lin
ger. Rest content, father, she shall not
suffer through your-your regard for me.
/ will give back ali the ill-gotten wealth.
But l will keep my freedom; l cannot sell
ii, father"
What do You meant"
<'That / will make over 10 Miss Munroe
every acre that you leave me-every farth-
ing thatis herdue. Nay, not one dissenting
word - as the old man stroye to speak
LET me keep my honesty, and make
my own way with clear hands, If empty
ones Iwould not offer my hand TO your
ward now, even though I loved her,
which / do not"
Clarence, my son"''
Father, say no more, but trust to me;
now you shsll sleep"
The girl, shaken by hushed sobs, turned
from the silvery night, and glided into
the house like shadow
Ere morning dawned, the soul of FL
mar Livingstone had gone where human
eye could not follow its flight, free of the
clogging clay, TO its Judgment
And as uptraceab3e, it would seem, as
the spirit of the man who had wronged
her, yet guarded her youth, Lena Munroe
had also gone with the night, leaving no
token behind her, bidding no farewell
Six years later the accident occurred on
the midnight train which filed the hos
pitaI of C. with moaning life, or
crushed and shapeless bodies, in which
was left scarcely strength to sigh.
The nurses went from pallet to pallet,
holding bandages, aiding to bind up great
gaping wounds, shrinking from the sight
of severed arms, but putting personal
feeling away before the great needs that
met them
One nurse, with sweet blue eyes, tender
and pitiful, gave a low cry at last, as the
surgeon whose assistant she was paused
beside cot on which young man lay
unconscious.
"You know him?'' the surgeon asked
her, regarding her blanched face cur
iously.
She bent her head in silence, a sob
bursting from herlips.
Half an hour later, he lay there under
her eyes, cold and still, with strips of
linen across his bosom, broken band
aged arm, and court plaster holding to-
gether the red edges of a cash that ran
perilously near the temple; and she knelt
beside the cot, with an ashen pain in her
young face, as she stroked back the hair
from his forehead.
"After six yearsl'' she whispered softly.
"Oh, my love, after six years during
which ] have striven to forget your face,
to see it so cold andwhite, But you shall
be more tenderly cared for than though
you had sister near you; and when you
are well enough to know me, we part
again"
For the crushed and wounded man was
Clarence Livingstone, the kneeliug nurse
the girl to whom he had refused his dy-
ing father TO make offer of his hand
Muproa