Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1889-09-26

70 her bro liking heart and pressed passion
ate kisses on the cold lips.
A look Of unutterable joy overspread the
features of Arthur Fairfax, and he said
half audibly: Good bye, Miriam, dearest
watch over our boy, and-meet me"
"Yes. darling, with Gods help" moaned
Miriam; and she held in her arms, not her
devoted husband, but clay-cold, mani
mate clayi
They led her away also, then, away from
her beloved dead. She sat down beside the
sleeping, fatherless child, and throwing one
arm over the unconscious boy moaned away
the night ia vigil of grief
"Why was thisi' she asked of the mid
night silence. why should he be taken
from her when they were so prosperous
and happy, when every thing that heart
could desire for comfort and domestic bliss
was theirs"
Little Arthur threw up his baby hands
and murmured "Papa," and fretted in his
slumber.
With mothers touch and caress Miriam
soothed him to untroubled repOse again. He
was all she had now, and her hot hands
wandered over his silken curls straying
about on the pillow.
All the next day she sat by her beloved
dead, stunned with the awful sense of her
bereavement. The servants went softly
about the house with sorrOwful faces, and
the attendants came in and went out of the
room and she scarcely knewit Twice they
brought little Arthur in the silent, darkened
room TO see his papa, but the sight of the
two together she could not bear, so when
the baby teased ito see what made papa
sleep so cold, they took him off in the gar
den and talked away his curiosity concern
ing the dead.
The last sad rites had been performed;
the solemn looking hearse, draped in black
Grape Topped with silver stars, had gone,
Arthur friends had gone home, all but
Patty, the youngest sister, and Miriam sat
in her beautiful home a widow.
Patty would stay with her all the coming
dreary winter-she had promised as much,
and by the springtime she should know,
perhaps, what was best to do.
When the spring laughed merriIy over
the isles and flowers came, they went
abroad for a month. Little Arthur's
health seemed to demand a change, and the
devoted mother held no sacrifice too
great for her child.
Miriam had her plans. She would travel
a little, and, in returning, would come
home by Hastings. and, If she could, would
venture on visit to the Hall Perhaps
her father might forgive her for the sake
Of her beautiful, fatherless child.
True, she had written him acquaintinR
him Of Arthur death, and he had left the
servants to make the reply, and send COM
fort and sympathy; but he was old and
very strange, any way, and letter, after
all, was not like seeing them. Patty
thought it wous work no harm to try a
visit to Heatherleigh, at least; she wished
to visit Beechwood once more, although
stranger hands had desecrRted her favor
tie walks, no doubt
And Patty - blue eyed, kind hearted
Patricia, who made the best OF sisters
superintendent it ali, and left Miriam to
seek solace and comfort care-free, and the
weary hearted mother felt she never could
be thankful enough for such priceless
companion as dear little sister Patty.
Again, she sat by the window, in the
eventide, looking out over the cliffs and the
sea; again the death fiat had gone forth,
and 1.-THE flower that grew betweenn was
ruthlessly snapped from its parent stem.
Patricia sat near her, dropping tears on
some broken toys she had treasured up
from the nursery. she could not weep
now; she was too desolate. God had seem
ingly forgotten her and left her without a
ray of hope, without q single string on
loves harp unbroken. Away out in the
offing she saw a white-wiuged ship, with
tint of sunset tingeing its sails the faintest
OF rose hues. That was, doubtless, the
messenger she had sent bearing a long,
long letter 10 one whom she had never seen,
but the missive contained request, never
theless.
The tear-stained pages, when unfolded
/ of Aa a Rvy4
blue waters OF the Narragansett, would re-
veal something like this:
II am alone. God pity mel A stranger
in mine own land. Bereaved OF husband
and child in one short half year, am DESC
late. Shut from fathers doors, am in
the depths of isolated sorrow. / have an
abundance Of means, and would be no
burden, could / come TO yous / am but a
stranger 70 you also, but you were my
mothers friend; will you not be mine al
sol"
Then this was the message she had sent.
Patricia knew II, and had demurred there
70, but she must 60 She had told herself
that a week after the clods ratified down on
her baby's coffin, and if she received an
answer from Bay View telling her that her
mothers friend still resided there she
would sell her beautiful home and leave her
native land forever the land which had
held nothing but sorrows for her from her
cradlehood
Patricia's lover and afiianced husband
would purchase The Rest, and it would
remain In the Fairfax family. Had little
Arthur lived she would have continued
her residence here aud would have kept the
elegant home, be2utified and cared for, for
him.
But with his death all her plans cher
tshea Tor his fgt1rs we're LAID away vita