The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1889-06-01

less lie, the desperation OF memory, the
dying, yet behold we live, that death in
life that is the greatest if not the last
enemy7
If there were other women who suf-
fered more than Marion Lancaster in
this dire suspense she did not know it /;
it seemed to her no heart could be
more torn with anxiety, more tortured
by the silence THAT yet thrilled with
dreadful possibilities, than hers. She
did not consider that her love for Hugh
Heriot was young passion scarcely
rooted in her breast that she was bound
to him by none of the strong ties of
those who had sent their husbands out
to war, and crouched on desolate
hearth-stones with clinging children
about them who might the next hour
be wailing orphans she thought she
suffered all she could, and as week after
week into month after month, and the
second year came lingering on, she
grew thin, pale, and listless.
For Hugh Heriot had vet had no
furlough the few times Marion had
heard from him he had spoken of his
intention to apply for one at the years
end, but he had enlisted for the war,
and felt that while his strength lasted
he must fight: he was more needed on
the field than even Marion needed him.
Yet after that first year began there
were no more letters, and after that the
battle of Lookout Mountain the lists of
killed and wounded came in so slowly
that it was long week before the very
last showed among the list OF missing,
Hugh Heriot, Major c, Tenth 1ntan-
try,
Missing Can words expound what
that one word meant in those daysa
Not the sharp blow of wounded, which
implied possible life, and even hope
of immediate repair TO the sufferer. and
all the gentle ministries to relieve one
and console the other, blessed in giving
or taking. Not the stun and desolation
| Of Dead, that left no worse to fear, nor
tantalized with the iguis tafuuS OF
hope ; but that one fatal word that tor
tured but did not slay that bound the
victim to the stake and piled the fagots,
but delayed to light the fire till the
waiting grew to be madess.
Marion was a warm hearted imagina-
tive girl, and Missing meant to her a
long chapter of surmised agonies. In
her waking hours she figured so many
and such dreadful possibilities that her
sleep renewed and exaggerated, she
painted such sufferings for her lost
lover, such terrific and harassing situa-
tons, that it would have been a posi-
tive relief to her to know of his death
yet she would not admit it to herself.
She lost all that held her to life, when,
just as the war ceased, her widowed
mother died suddenly and without one
farewell word. 1t would have been bet
ter for Marion mad necessity forced her
to exertion, but she had enough money
to hve-on comfortably, and so she shut
herself in her tiny house with her old
servant, and made herself solitary
mourner. Her beautiful and abundant
brown hair grew white as snow, and
her eyes lost their sparkle; but her
health gradually asserted itself anew,
her constitution was strong, and she
almost lived out of. doors, either in her
garden, which was her sole amusement
and pleasure, or walking over the breezy
hills of the country about. She had
never been half so beautiful when Hugh
Heriot knew her as she was, eight years
after, when, one exquisite morning in
May, she stood by her door clipping
boughs OF hawthorn from her one cher
ished tree, and placing them beside the
apple blossoms she had already gathered
in a large basket. There too were
sheaves OF pale narcissus, trails Of
heaven blue myrtle, punches of the later
snow drops and gorgeous tulips; for it
was Memorial Day, and never since its
first observance had Marion failed to
carry whatever blossoms she could find
to the cemetery, and add her share to
the honors of the few dead soldiers who
slept in that small and shaded place of
rest.
1t smote her every year to think Of
that unhonored place where her lovers
body rested, for long ago she had given
up hore tor his life. Who covered his
grave with flowers or foliage7 Who
prayed over his last sieep7 The thought
stung her again as she took from the
| doorstep a smaller basket of wild flow
ers, with which she always dressed the
low mound above her mother, and TAX
ing the larger one on her arm, went
over to the school-house, where the
young village girls were making wreaths
and bouquets. From there she went
to her mothers grave, and began to
adorn it with all the blossoms of wood
and field her mother had loved so much
in her life she heard the distant music
of the band begin to send its walling
| he