The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-12-22

you, a lady among the best Do not grieve
after me-. | had to 60 should have
gone mad 10 stay longer away from hsppi-
ness
That was all. A. first they all laughed.
Il was one of Becca's jokes. o, very
good joke, indeed; and they laughed still
more gayly and planned what they would
say to her when she came home, and by
what high-sounding names thev would call
her. But the hours wore by and she did not
come, and they CEASED 20 laugh-all save
Luke, who was always Laughing. And then
neighbor passed who spoke 10 Luke and
his father at the shop door OF having seen
Becca on the train as It passed through
New Haven, and asked If she hai gone 20
stay long. The memory OF their faces, as
he ask d the question all iuuoceutly,
haunted him long after. IL was so strange
to see troubled expression upon Hub
bard face. The neighbor passed on and the
two men went into the house. The mother
was then st the door.
SIS there no word from Becca" she be
gan, but the old father lifted his hand with
a terrible oath
"Never speak her name again, he cried,
''wanton that she is. "
Then the mother cried out:
mo, no; Becca will come back lady
vet, tell you-a great lady and then she
fell to weeping wildly, and Matthew, her
first born, wept too, whereas Luke burst
out into historical laughter, and nothing
could stop him until he fell down in fit
| upon the floor. After he was brought out
of it by the village doctor, whom they
| called, he fell into n long sleep and awoke a
changed man. Something had broken IN
| the head-a bloodvessel, the doctor said
| and he would never be the same again. A
dull, silent fellow he was after that-al-
ways lost in brown study steady at his
work and honest as the daylight, but with
| nothing to say TO any man save yea and
nay. Within six months the old man died
in a stroke of apoplexy, and the next year
| Matthew and Mark went to seek their fort
unes in the far west. just two years from
the Christmas night when Becca had met
| Roger at the gate. baby girl, scarce 6
| weeks old, was left on the Hub5ards' door
step.
From the hour of Becca's Disappearance
her mother had never lost faith in the
| eventual return of her daughter "a
grand lady" The simple-souled mother
knew little of the world, and her faith in
her pretty child who had always been a
dutiful daughter remained mistaken.
! Twice Becca had written and seat gifts and
money to her mother during that first year,
and assured her that sine was quite we'll and
that all in good time she would explain her
absence. Then came year of silence, and
| bueu Iue tluJ DdOJ Sul WIS AeL1 ph ehe uppE
STEP She lay in a basket fille with dainty
clothing, and on the little kerch OFFS and blbs
"Msrahn was carefully embroidered
All the village came TO see the child, and
Mrs. Stevens among the number; and
while she trotted the little stranger upon
her knee, she trotted the little stranger upon
her knee, she told Mrs. Hubbard how she
had JUS received the wedding cards of her
nephew Roger. 1t had been a very grand
wedding, too and she had been invited, but
did not feel able TO go. And Just then the
infant upon her knee broke into a wild
wailing cry, and would not be comforted
until it lay on Mrs. Hubbard's motherly
breast
| Everybody surmised whose child it was,
and gossip was rife. Becca's disappearance
was still talked of in the village, and g
thousand stories had been rife but Rogers
visit to Berlin had never been associa ed
with the event in their minds. Ii wa
known that he came to the place to WOO hi
sweetheart in East Berlin, and TO not more
than one or two minds had even a suspiclol
of the truth occurred And with these il
had remained mere suspicion.