The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-07-24
then passed out through the little gate.

L SUCH WOMEN M6I6 UuiJ tUO NATURALLY tu6
prey of their owners, or OF some neighboring
| grandee who was enthralled for a moment
| by their beauty. Adele's fate was the fate
of her kind-with this difference. A planter
fell wildly, madly, passionately in love with
her, and wanted to marry her. He was
willing to sacrifice country, home, friends,
| everything to his unreasonable passion for
| the beautiful slave. He offered her owner
any price, but the naughty old Creole, who
would have died to preserve the integrity of
| this caste, Indignantly refused to listen to
terms. But Adele's child is my son.
Monsieur LIE Grande shrugged his should
| ers. IN sieur. that is detail of your life
with which have nothing to do
| III mlscegenation was ever brought on
Louisiana it would not be through his fault.
Adele loved her child with all the passion
ate intensity of her half savage nature, and
| when the child's father begged her to give
| him the boy so he might have broader life
| In another country than he could hope for in
| her whelps. She had known nothing but
| slavery and she could not understand the
| degradation 1t meant for the man, born of
| freedom, who saw the woman he loved and
his child bearing the bonds of slaves; but
| at last mother love triumphed, and one dark
night she stole the child out OF bed and tore
his clinging arms from about her neck, kissed
| for the last time the dewy sweet mouth of
childhood, and laid him in his fathers arms
All that night she lay upon the dank, wet
6iuoos N1ltuluS III alSuloll that Tore QeI very
soul In twain, and when, in the early dusk,
she saw the black hull and tall masts of the
ocean steamer as 1t dropped down the river
she could bear ne. more, but drew her hands
over her eyes to shut out the sight, for she
knew it bore her child away from her.
The years went by slowly enough for the
| poor mother, whose soul was absorbed in the
| thought of her 'petit LedOn," as she fondly
| persisted in calling him, but for the boy
growing up in great city, handsome rich,
feted, the time passed all too swiftly. Noone
knew his history. He was the son OF rich
| American-that title so vague yet so satisfac-
tory to Europeans. AS for the rest, one
could see for themselves!
No one knew the boys history but the boy
himself. His father never once suffered him
| to forget it, that his mother, so beautiful
and so beloved, was slave, who was doomed
| to feel. perhaps, the slave drivers lash on
her tender, quiyering flesh. From his earliest
| consciousness 1t was impressed on Leon that
| he was to avenge the wrong inflicted on his
| father and mother.
Leon was beautiful; he had the best
| education the French capital could bestow
and that indescribable air of the great world
| that sets the seal Of polish on man. His
father, looking at him. felt all the revenge
and hatred he had nursed so long crystalline
| in plan of action. lie would send Leon to
| New Orleans with proper letters and creden-
| tlals; there he should meet the daughter Of
| the man who had stood between him and
Adele; he should marry this girl, and then
he would be revenged, when the daughter of
| the naughty aristocrat knew she was married
| to the son of her own slave!
Leon had not lived under his fathers NOR
bid influence so long without becoming in
| fected by it, He, too, felt the degradation
chafed at the impossibility OF freeing her.
| There were but few generations between
him and his savage forefathers, and he felt
brute indifference to the pain he was to
infiict.
The programme his father so carefully
mapped out he fulfilled to the letter. 1t
might all have been rehearsed thousand
tlmeS-hiS appearance and success in New
Orleans society, even his meeting with the
shy, sensitive girl who was no match for the
the news OF their engagement 1t shrugged its
shoulders.
"Bah, '!it said, "a little chit of thing who
does nothing but make nouvenas. He will
tire of her in a week."
The marriage followed close upon the an
nouncemcnt of the engagement 1t was
celebrated in the gay old cathedral, and after
a few weeks of pleasuring the young couple
left for the BRIDES plantation home.
To Adele the time that had elapsed since
her boys return to America seemed inter-
minable. She knew that by. some cans he
was married to her young mistress, but she
did not understand the plot that was to
avenge her. At last, however, he was COM
ing home, her little Leon, her heart, her soul
She would see him, hear him speak, be near
him once more. He might not speak to her,
she might not claim him before the world,
but that was nothing. Some night he would
slip down to the little cabin and call her
mother" and she would ;ah be repaid She
denly the door opened and Icons father
stood on the threshold he had not crossed
since the day he pleaded with the naughty
planter for her. The courteous old host adj
vanced to meet him.
Monsieur he said, sit is many years
since have welcomed you within these
DOORS"
YES" responded the other, shut tonight
hear you welcome home your son and
daughter, and came to offer my felicia
lions"
Almost as he spoke the door opened and
the bridal party entered. The servants fell
back and stood blocking door and window, q
dense mass of faces. Only Adele stood apart
in the shadow of door, trembling, fearing
she knew not what. Suddenly there. fell a
deep portentous silence like the break in a
tempest Before word could be said Icons
father stepped forth and took his hand.
my son." he said, ION dark night, TWEEN
ty-fve years ago, 1 took, you. from your
you back. Tonight redeem my promise"
AS he spoke he laid Icons hand in the
trembling hand of Adele. Leon stopped
down and brushed with his bearded lips his
mothers ashen cheek, and then he turned to
mis- pale and affrighted wife.
II present to you my mother. After so many
years separation it is charming to be re-
united. and under your ancestral roof"
The poor little bride turned from his
cruel eyes to where her father stood, frozen
with horror as the truth of the scene forced
itself on him. All her love for the man in
whose face she read now only bitter
aversion, all the teachings of her life rushed
back upon her In one overwhelming flash OF
consciousness that she was married to
negro. the son Of her own slave, and with
wild cry she fell senseless to the floor.
For weeks she hung between life and
death, and when health came unwelcomely
back 1t brought no return of consciousness,
for she was mad. Reason was overthrown
by the great shock, and she was maniac.
Leon and his father entreated Adele to go
back with them to Paris, but she stubbornly
refused. Her love told her that happiness
was over for her; that it had passed her by
and would never come back. She would be
but burden on those she loved, more
separated from them than if oceans rolled
between. Their life and hers could never be
the same. So second time she stood watch
ing the black hull and tall spars of the ocean
steamers bearing all she loved away from
her, and she turned away patiently, knowing
it was forever.
In darkened room, knowing nothing of
the present. her young mistress called cease
lessily for adele" and she answered the
pitiful cry sitting her own bitter grief as
best she might.
The proud old planter did not long survive
the sorrow that wrecked his daughters lie,
and when he died the priest and physician,
his old friends, removed Adele and her
patient to the house, where Nine Charpen-
| tier heard on still nights the sound of tire
| less footsteps. moving, moving. moving.
Adele never left the mad woman. For
| years she kept up her ceaseless vigils. sooth-
| ing, quieting, restraining the maniac in her
paroxysms. Perhaps she considered it an
atonement for the sorrow that had come
unwittingly through herself No one could
know, but when at last Nine. d'Avril found
peace and rest in death the priest turned
from the dead white face to the living face
above which was scarcely less white and
still and he stretched out his hand above her
head.
"My daughter" he said very reverently.
81 give you dissolution. Who loyes much
and suffers much, to them much shall be
| forgiven"