The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1889-03-22
POOR LITTLE EMILY,
The History Of a Prudent
Marriage.
By MISS MULooK.
CHAPTER 1v.


CHAPTER Nv.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
wouid gladly put This as the motto 10
the present chapter, and adopt the moral of
Il, which is noblo and Christian moral,
and can not be too tenderiyy and sedulously
acted upon--in the main. But truth for
-hids.sllepSs .oneiin,es-thot truth,
tS--l As.Yhulk$H77v 5 -s>r .hem;
The good Is often Inferred with heir bones.
which is as true now a' when Shakespeare
4 wrote it. No one, taking a vida and com
{ prehensivo'vie of lie, can fail 10 see what
fatal harm is sometimes caused, passively,
by the passive dead; how often the l.,iie
viii IN, ,ure themselves mere .Uan
themselves = for the sake OF what
they call "respect for the memory
OF the departed" some one whS,
maybe, was once rs foolish, obstinate, self
ish, cruel as any OF us, and in death has
perpetuated the ill-doings of his life. Fiom
this feeling, corrupted from virtue into
mere superstition, many n wrong, too late
discovered, which ought, years and years
before, to have been dragged to the open
day, and crushed and trampled under the
ayenging heel Of righteous wrath and noble
,scorn. Is hushed mp, suffered to be passed
over unrequited, because--alas! the wrong-
doers are now far away in the silent land,
where, at least, they can injure no more.
Nothing but good Of the deadi If good
cannot be spoken, then keep silence.
Hes,s ,sorlinArily.G God fnrhid that when
He lays His eternal seal upon the qnfver-
ing mouth OF sinner rs we'll as saint, ours
likewise should not respect His awful mah-
date and be dumb. But there nre cases in
which silence regarding the dead involves
wrong to the living, and that which might
have been solemn warning to many others
left behind falls short of its natural lesson
Tho lesson would fain have some world
ly people lay to heat from this story tho
true story, alas! Of John Bowerbank's wife.
Though it happened long ago, and though
place, people, and eAtraneous circumstances
have boen, I trust, effectually disguised,
still the story itself is no invention, but
fact told to me; and I tell it, after oil tho
actors therein are safeIy dead and gone,
as a lesson to those whom it may concern;
especially those who are supposed to need
none, and yet fate often reads 10 them
quietly the sharpest lesson Of all-the par
ents Of grown-up children.
Lady Dowerbank was sitting quite alono,
and dressed in deep mourning, in the dim
ing-room Of the house at Queen Anne
strcct. She had been summoned 10 London
foz the first time sincether marriage. by q
very sad evert-tho sudden death OF hei
fnther. He was not an old man exactly,
and had been hitherto remarkably halo and
4ctive, living his life the life of n barris.
Ter nDout towns-with apparent enjoyment,
making, and spending as fast as he made,
very good income, absorbed chiefly IN
s selfish pl asures, but pleasures Of o per-
fectly reputable and unobjectionable kind.
However, In the midst of these Death
found and called him. Some hidden heart
disease suddenly developed itself, and he
was stluck down while making speech IL
court. His daughter aad son-in-law were
telegraphed d for, Lut even before the mes
sage reached them he was no more. They
sarried him back from Westminster Hall tG
his own door n corpse.
gOf course, deep was the sympathy witt
his family; and though since her marriage
he had 80 withdrawn himself from her thai
the slender filial relation which ever ex st.
ed, or was likely TO exist, between q loving
girl and q man so essentially selfish, that ex.
cept by force OF the claim OF nature he had
no right whatever to be considered father
had become all but nominal; still, over.
powered by the suddenness of the stroke,
sis daughter mourned for him inourned,
remembering not SO much later years as
those early childish days when almost ey.
eryman takes certain pleasure in pater.
nifty, especially being father to n pretty lit.
: tle girl. She recalled how he, used TO sci
her on the table after dinner and make hei
dance to hims or take her walks in the park
with her best clothes on-her muslin
frocks, and blue ribbons, and her golden
hair flying about, 30 that, infant as she was,
she was fully aware everybody noticed her,
and asked aWhose charming little girl thai
was?" Halcyon days these, during which
many ON imperfect nature and hard benrt
ride safely over the smooth winters OF life,
to be shipwrecked afterward. IL Is not till
the storm eonnes that we and cut the real
building and timber of the vessel.
After these days come others, in which,
\. "a sv.xge. oAts hA~