Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-06-19
MARA'S STORY.

have just been looking upon the face of Mara, dead. When those we love pass Into the silence of death, no matter how cruelty fate has dealt by them, we do not say that we are glad Yet, when I stood above the coff1ned form of my dead friend-she to whom my heart cleaved as David's did to Jonathan when saw the smile upon her still face, if might have laid my warm lips upon her cold mouth and breathed into her once moro the breath of life; if I might have laid my heart against her heart and sent the subtle elixir of the blood coursing again through her stiff veins; if it had been vouchsafed me to work some such miracle as this, I would not have done it.
 As l passed through the garden to the house where she lay dead plucked sprig of rue and rosemary and laid them hidden un- der all the wealth of hothouse flowers upon her heart.
 "Dear," I said so quietly, that none might hear it save the dead, "dear, even in the grave thou must remember"
 All day long she lay upon her bier with that still, cold smile like frozen sunshine on her face, and the people she had known in life came in by ones and twos to look upon her for the last time.
 "How beautiful she was," they said, land how sad for one to die so young. She had everything in life. j." And they passed chattering out into the busy street where the sun shone and the world rushed on as if there was no Mara lying dead behind drawn blinds.
 But at last the night fell, and I prayed them to leave me alone with the dead. In all the world only I, who had laid the sprig of rue and rosemary among the costly funeral trappings, knew the secret of that still heart, and it seemed to me that even in eternity she must know that for the last time watched beside her, and must be glad.
 I took ill mine the lifeless hand, whose coldness did not appall me- and laid my cheek against it. The room was very still. I could hear the muffied ticking of clock some where in the distance, the night air came in through the half open window heavy with the perfume from the garden, the moonlight touched and glorified the still, sweet smile on the dead face: What was it they had said of her? That she was very beauti- full and it was sad for such as she to die. They meant that she was rich; that she had costly gowns and splendid horses and Q box at the opera; that her husband gave her fine raiment and dainty food, and so they brought their overbig hothouse roses to lay upon her bier and said that it was sad; but I, who brought her nothing but rue and rose mary, I knew that no tears should fall upon the happy dead.
 The hand I held in mine was strangely heavy, and the moon striking upon it showed @ gleaming band upon her finger, massive golden fetter that was her wedding ring. I shrank as saw it, as if some ono had struck mo. All at once the wind blew cold and sharp, but the hand was half shut as if, even in death, Mara remembered to guard that heavy band and keep it from slipping from her slender hold.
 Perhaps none of us are quite free from superstition, and even our best beloved, looked upon her had loved so long, and it seemed to me that could read in the quiet smile, and the fair face that no suffering could make unlovely, nothing but the mute cloquence of that guarded ring.
 have often wondered how Mara came to tell me her story. It is such common one, so many womens lives are like hers, it is scarcely worth telling; and yet in the deep silence of the night, with that dead hand in mine, the only thing that seemed living, breathing, palpitating reality was the quiet tragedy on whose end the curtain had just | rung down. -..--.+ .-.. r. All her life had known Mara, but in the wandering newspaper career l had chosen there were sometimes breaks of years in our intimacy, when I would hear of her as a schoolgirl, or debutante, or society belle and then heard of her marriage and from time to time run,ors reached me of the mag. nificence of her entertainments, and I was
 vaguely conscious that she was pursuing the life of fashionable woman in one of ou, great cities. ..4.. -.... And then fate threw us together again al 1 a little sea coast village, and the old friend l ship renewed itself. I think knew almost from the very first that all was not we'll witt Mara. She was greatly changed, and wal even more beautiful than 1 had remembered l her, but there was that something in hel eyes-you may often see the expression In (
 proud womans eyes-that tells palmer thar any words the story of her life. It Is tht history of the agony with which she has seer her idol torn down and trampled under foot
 defled forever in her sight; it is the memory l of tho broken hopes and torn illusions II which she realizes that her youth, with al
 it's divine hope and faith, is gone from hel
 never moro to be replaced. Such {. woman l may love again, but to her no man can b.
 again god. She has seen the gold witt
 which her own fancy gilded her idol fal
 from it, leaving it basest clay, and she be
 leves, and hopes, and trusts no more. suppose I read this story little by little i,
 Mara's eyes in the long summer days we wer together. l saw her with her husband. l saw that she bent her will to his slightes 1 law; that she stayed her quick brain to kee1
 pace with his slow thought; that she brough
 her keen wit to brighten the market repor or the tedious game of cards that seemed tn
 only thing he cared for, and it angered me
 I told myself that he was selfish; that he un
 derstood nothing of her quick throbbing life