The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-02-13

10 De easily overcome Dy any SUFFERING OF
the mind or of the senses; the vigorous
and abounding life which filled her veins
became a cruel mockery of the weariness
and barrenness of her empty days and
starved affections. When she had thought
of Christslea as a haven of rest in which
she could let her sick soul lie hidden in
peace, she had remempered it as 1T had
been with her fathers presence filling it
as with the benign and cheerful light of
spiritual sunshine. She had forgotten
that without him it could be only a
lonely and dreary cottage like any other I;
bald, poor, empty life, lived out face to
face with eternal losses and eternal
regrets.
What had been left her through her ia
ther was trife indeed; no more than one
OF the head servants of Ladysrood was
paid year; but it was enough for such
few wants as her life here comprised, and
the rental of the cottage she paid into the
hands of the steward every three months
"My lord does not permit me to receive
it." said the steward, in infinite perplex-
ity and distress.
"But l insist that you shall take it, she
replied. "Pay it into the poor-box at La
dysrood parish church if you can do moth
ingelse."
And it was paid to the poor accordingly.
She would not owe to him one square
inch of the soil in which the stocks and
the sweet-brier grew. Everything that
was not the gift OF her father, or of Aubrey
and his sister, she had left behind her;
all her costly wardrobes, her furs, her
laces, her fans, her pictures, her jewels Of
all sorts, she left in his houses where they
were, locked up in their chests and ca6i-
nets and cases, and the keys were de-
] fo1 cta
You have acted as though you were
guilty, and not he," Aubrey said to her
again and again, demonstrating with what
seemed to him exaggerated feeling.
Il could not have borne my life il had
kept any single thing of his" she an
swered, with an energy which was almost
violence. Everything he ever gave me
is at Ladysrood, from my bridal pearls
down to the last gift he bought for me-"
81 do not deny that there is nobility
and remuneration in YOUR withdrawal into
this obscurity and beggary," replied Au-
brey, "but it is mistake. 1t has made
thing which the world need never have
known become inevitably the worlds talk.
1t may sound priggish, pretentious, or un-
feeling perhaps, my dear, if l say so, but 1
have always held that people of our order
have no right to crafty their own private
=
from painful obligation, if by so doing
they bring the name they represent uDon
the common tongues of the crowd. This
| is a sense of the old noblesse oblige. We
do not belong only to ourselves. We are
part of the honor of our nation. When
we do anything on the spur of personal
passion or personal injury, which brings
those whose name we bear into disrepute,
we are faithless to our traditions and our
trusts"
She sighed heavily, and the tears rolled
off her lashes down her cheeks. She
knew that be was right; no appeal to dig
nifty and honor could leave untouched the
inmost chords of the heart of John Yer
mons daughter.
II will never do anything to lower his
name myself" she said.-Eith emotion.
| "Never, let me suffer what l may"
THAT am sure Of" replied Aubrey;
but, without thought, you have done what
must inevitably draw the comment and
the censure of the world upon you both"
"Not l. 1t was not my fault, though l
have taken all blame for it. He had left
me openly for her. He hadresolved to do
so before l set foot in Naples"
at need never have been known to the
world in general if you had continued to
be the mistress OF his houses, and with
time you might have regained his affec-
tions"
A hot blush OF deepest anger scorched
up the tears upon her cheeks.
II could not live like that; would not
exist day in such hypocrisy and degra-
dation."
"Why will you talk of death, my dear? ?
You will outlive me and Guilderoy by
many years. You are hardly more than a
| child STILL"
"And do not children die? 1t is true
death never takes those who wish for it;
and l am always weli-cruelly well-ad-
surdly wellp'
''This is ungrateful to Fate, my dear.
Would you be happier if you were lying
on sick bed, paralyzed with bodily pains
torturing you, as well as mental?"
at would be a less harsh contrast. Oh,
yesl 1 know that l am thankless, un-
| gracious-wicked dare say; but when 1
feel such perfect health in me, such un-
tiring strength, l wonder what are the
use OF them, why they stay with me, why
they could not make my little children
strong enough too so that they might have
| lived. His sister always says it was my
fault that they died. l do not think it
was"
"Yes;I wish your children had lived.
You would not have severed your life
| from his then"
"Oh, yes, I should. Ishould have done
Just the same only / should have had them
with me. He would not have taken them
away from me. l heard him say once that
a man was a brute who would take her
children away from any woman, at any
age, whatever the law might allow to
! him."
Aubrey looked at her in surprise.
"My dear, when you can recognize
qualities and feelings in him like this why
did you not have more patience with him
Human nature can not give unaloyed ex-
| cellence and human affections should not
expect it. In what we love we are sure to
find grave faults. and faults which often
are of the kind which we of all others
most disparage; but we must accept them
Just as we would accept blindness or lame
ness, or any physical accident in the per-
son we loved"
'That depends on the character OF the
faults
"Does it not rather depend on our own
character? / admit that what is vile or
utterly false and feeble will kill affection,
because it destroys the very roots in which
it is planted. But the infidelities OF the
passions and the waywardness of the in
stincts are not sins so dark as to be un-
pardonabe; they are indeed, faults almost
| inseparable from manhood"
| She looked at him wistfully.