The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1888-07-14
POOR LITTLE EMILY,
The History Of a Prudent
Marriage.
BY MISS UNLOCK.
CHAPTER "
De mortuiS nil nisi bonum.

DE m0rtulS NIL nlSi DOnum.
l would gladly put this as the motto to
the present chapter, and adopt the moral of
it. which is noble ard Christian moral,
and can not be too tenderly and sedulously
acted upon in the main. But truth for
bids silence sometimes that truth,
The evil h 1T men do lives after them;
The good Is often inferred with heir bones,
which Is as true now as when Shakespeare
wrote it. No one, taking wide and COM
prehensiSe view of life, can fail TO see what
fatal harm is sometimes caused, passively,
by the passive dead; how often the l.vi G
will iniure the mselves AMI more tan
themselves = for the. sake of what
they coil respect for the memory
of the depart d." some one WIN,
maybe, was once as foolish, obstinate, self
ish, cruel as any of Us, and in death has
perpetGated the i'll doings of his life. From
this feeling, corrupted from virtue into q
mere superstition, many q wrong, too late
discovered, which ought, years and years
before, to have been dragged to the open
day, and crushed and trampled under the
aveneing heel of righteous wrath and noble
scorn, IS hushed up, suffered to be passed
over unrequited, because-alas! the wrong
doors are now far away in the silent land,
where, at least, they can injure no more.
Noting but good of the dead If good
Yes, ordinarily. God forbid that when
He LAYS His eternal seal upon the culver
ing mouth of sinner as well as saint, ours
likewise should not respect His awful man.
date and be dumb. But there are cases in
which silence regarding the dead involves
wrong to the living, and that which might
have been a solemn warning to many others
left behind falls short of its natural lesson
the lesson | would fain have some world
ly people lay TO heart from this story-the
true story, alasl of John Bowerbank's wife,
Though it happened long ago, and though
place, people, and extraneous circumstances
have been, l trust, etfectually disguised,
still the story itself is no invention but q
fact told to me; and l tell it, after all the
actors therein are safely dead and gone,
as lesson to those whom it may concern;
especially those who are supposed to need
none, and yet fate often reads 10 them
quietly the sharpest lesson of all-the par
ents of grown-up children.
Lady Bowerbank was sitting quite alone,
and dressed in deep mourning, in the din
mg-room of the house at Queen Anne
street. She had been summoned to London
for tie first time since her marriage, by
very sad event-the sudden death Of her
father. He vas not an old man exactly,
and had been hitherto remarkably hale and
active, living his life the life of a barris-
ter aoout town with apparent enjoyment,
making. and spending as fest as he made,
very good income, absorbed chiefly in
selfish leasures, but pleasures of per-
fectly repu able and uuobiectionable kind.
However, in the midst of these Death
found and called him. Some hidden heart
disease suddenly developed itself, and he
was stuck down while making a speech in
court. His daughter and son-in-law were
toll Nod e., L,,S IoTo n.
sage reached them he was no more. They
carried him back from Westminster Hall to
his own door q corpse.
OF course, deep was the sympathy with
his family and though since her marriage
he had so withdrawn himself from her that
the slender tlial relation which ever ex St
ed, or was likely to exist, between O loving
girl and man so essentially selfish, that ex-
cept by force of the claim of nature he had
60 right whatever to be considered father,
had become all hut nominal; still, over
powered by the suddenness of the stroke,
his daughter mourned for him -mourned,
remembering not so much later years as
those early childish days when almost ev-
cry man takes a certain pleasure in pater-
nifty, especially being father to pretty lit
tie girl. She recalled how he used to set
her on the table after dinner and make her
dance to him, or take her walks in the park
with her best clothes on-her muslin
frocks, end blue ribbons, ard her golden
hair flying about, so that, infant as she was,
she was fully aware everybody noticed her,
and asked Whose charming little girl that
was?" Haicyon days these, during which
many an imperfect nature and hard heart
ride safely over the smooth waters of life,
to be shipwrecked afterwari. 1t is not till
the storm comes that we find out the real
building and timber of the vessel.
After these days came others, in which,
to the hest of Emiiys recollection, her
father had taken very little notice of her;
Tor nobody noticed her now very ma h.
She had ceased to be pretty; her benny
was only tho round rosjness OF infa 10y,
and 1t slipped away and there had not vet
come that beaming spiritual loneliness
which had SO charmed the unartistc eve,
but clear head and sound heart of John,
Stenhouse. SO she had been, during her
teens. good deal neglected; ana, in fact,
her Young life had only wakeneI nh on
that fatal Liverpool visit, The consequences
of viii h turned the careless father into n
rennorseless judge-a cruel enemy.
But she forgaye him that: she was ready
TO forgive him anything, rs she sat in his
eaSy-chalr, before his private desk, the pa
p rs OF whlth Sir John, summoned back
homo Immediately after the funeral, had
lett her to examine alone; she was haunted
by sad thoughts of her father-her own
poor faith r-who had so enjoyed the good
things OF this life his cosy dining room
his after dinner repose sleeping now. this
hrst night, under ground the eternal sleep
OF death. She would have liked to think
OF him otherwise and otherwhcre, but some
how she c, I'D not; he had been man so
essent ally worldly that even after his death
one fancy unconsciously associated him
with this world. She knew she ought to
dwell upon him as safe and happy in
hcaVen, and Yet her thong is would fly
BACK and back, like gloomy birds of evil
omen, and settle in that cheerless. misty
cemetery at kensal Green-where. Sir John
Bowerhauk had said some handsome mem
oTlal must Immediately be erected TO dis
nngnlsh Il from the throng of graves; and
he LEI; his wife behind in London for dav
IN order that she might ieisurely examine
M a hers papers, and find out whether
tEe deceAsed-ls Was melancholy to hear
the clever barrister, the social diner.ont
already spoken OF rs merely tine deceased
had any particular wish regar ding his
own monument; Tor Emily's husband was
very ktndiy, very considerate: and In this
llSt sad eonluncture she had bean more
drawn to him than for many months be-
fore.
She had hidden him good-by an hour
ago. EA starting by tie night mail for Iiv-
erpooi, and had settled herself alone in
the large. desolate dining room, making a
sort o. encampment by the fire, that Sic
might feel less drearv. Then She hogan
LOOKING over-drawer by drawer, and paner
af'er p1per-the large desk which had been
'hs awe of her childhood and the ner-
nlexuy of her youth. She could hardly
believe that 1t was really her elf then peer
ing INTO with unhallowed eyes, and turn
ing over with unforbidden hands. those
secrets OF which we all have some, and
wi. "n ca we think are safe from everybody,
tall death comes and teaches diffaysntl, ~