Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-16
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

name, he took out letters-patent to assume
the name of Constam, which he imagined
would impart to his patronymic a more
English look while preserving in the sound
sufficient of its former identity to satisfy his
pride in his supposed Greek extraction.
The next step was to get q wife, and here
again Mr.. Constam, as we must begin to
write his name, exhibited his usual prompti-
tude. He hastened to unbosom himself of
his matrimonial intentions to his junior
partner. Theodore Constantine made no
attempt to conceal his satisfaction when he
learnt that the lady whom Mr.. Constam had
singled out for the intended honor was'his
own daughter, Thyrza. He avowed him
self most fattered by the preference, and
declared his readiness to prepare his beauti-
full Thyrza for Mr.. Constants meditated
attack on the virgin citadel of her heart.
Thyrza Constantine was a beautiful wom-
an of hve-and-twenty, of the purest Greek
type, and in the fulness of her charms. 1t
might have been thought that a woman so
Young and fair, with none of the early
freshness of feeling departed, good and ami
able, too, deserved better fate than to mate
with man who was at least so years her
senior. Such a disparity in years was a
gulf not easily to be bridged over. On the
other hand, it might have been argued that
Mr.. Constam, if no longer young, was we'll
preserved, and was gifted with the qualities
which might be trusted to secure the happi-
hess of any woman who would confde her
future to his keeping. He had led no riot
GUS youth to impair his constitution, and
although time, and the cares of his earlier
years, had silvered his locks, they had abat-
ed nothing from his height, or the frmness
and elasticity of his step. He was still as
straight as poplar, we'll knit and wiry, and
bade fair to make old bones" Add to
that an excellent heart, and what more
would you have?
Mr.. Constants courtship supplied fresh
illustration of the old adsge:
Happy is the wooing
That's not long ADDING.
Within month after he had become Lord
of the Manor of Greystoke and sundry other
seignorial rights, Thyrza Constantine had
been made the mistress of Greystoke Court
They were married quietly within the time
worn walls of Greystoke Church.
Mr. Constants strength of will was
equaled by the tenacity of purpose which
occupied the bosom of the regal lady who,
after brief honeymoon, returned to Grey
stoke, to play the role of loving and de-
voted wife to her husband, and Lady
Bountltul to the poor of the neighborhood,
with which the fortunes OF the house of Con-
STAN had become entwined. She had been
easily prevailed upon to enter into her hus-
bands social views, and was precisely the
woman to assist him to the realization of
his ambition. When, after a brief but
happy married life of three years, her hus-
band died, and was buried in the vaults
which contained the bones of dead-and-gone
Templetors for six centuries past, she gave
herself up entirely to the interests of the
little Constantine Constam, dear to her for
his dead fathers sake as well as his own,
and dear, too, as the frail argosy which car
ried such precious hopes.
Mrs. Constam had often heard her hus-
band quote the remark: "It takes three
generations to make gentleman. She re-
solved to- abbreviate that period bv one
generation. 1t her ambition, like that of
her departed husbands, was little vulgar,
it could not be denied by her most bitter
critics that she displayed all the instincts
and feelings of true gentlewoman-one of
natures own making. Her charities were
lavish without ostentation. On the few oc-
casions when the opportunity to show herself
hospitable was afforded her, she discharged
the duties of hostess with an unassuming
grace and kindliness, which did more than
her undoubted beauty, or the compassion
felt for her in her early widowhood, to thaw
the icy reserve with which ''the county"
had resented what they termed the Son
STAN invasion"
She bore herself as a welI-bred woman of
gracious mien, and in time became social
success; so that when the young Constantine
had been plunged into the aristocratic
Lethe of Eton and Christ Church. where
plebeian stains and memories were washed
away, she eontrived to marry her son to her
liking. For, although Edith Newnham
brought no fortune 10 Constantine, and was
only the daughter Of baronet, she brought
a coat-ofarms, with quarterings enough to
have puzzled the whole College of Heralds,
il haply they had been required to trace out
the various branches and twigs of the
Newman stock.
COnstantine's career was brief one, He
was killed in the hunting field three months
before his first child was bonn. Even the
memory of the recent tragic death of his
father could not cast gloom over the re-
joicings at Greystoke, when Newman Con-
STAN, the third of his race, was born. The
mothers heart was comforted in her sorrow
over the untimelv death Of her husband,
who had been snatched from her ere the
orange blossoms which had bloomed on her
fair young brow as bride had had time to
wither. Mrs. Constam, the elder, naturally
reioiced that when the stock had been re-
morselessly cut down a young and healthy
shoot had appeared, leaving to old Jerome
Constam name and representative in the
land of his adoption. Huge casks of beer
were Immediately broached and bells set
ringing; and when the tiny Newman was
carried for baptism across the park to the
gray UNCOVERED church which stands Just
outside the park gates at the entrance of the
village of Greystoke. he was conducted
through perfect avenue of tenants and re-
tsiners who were holding high festivity in
honor of the little squire. while the women
called down blessings on his bonnie face. It
is the strange disappearance of this Newn-
ham Constam we have to relate.