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 MULOCK.
CHAPTER Nv.



De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
L would gladly put this us the motto 10
The present chapter, and adopt the moral Of
1t, which is n noble and Christian moral,
and can not be too tonderly and sedulously
acted upon-in the main. But truth for
bids silence oro.inles s-thnt truth,
~ o ov.. Ii " lien d vs. s.'s,r 'bom;
The good is often Inferred with heir bcnes.
which is as true now q when Shakespeare
wrote it. No one, taking vida and COM
prehensivc of life, can fail 10 Soc what
fatal harm is mctimes caused, passively,
by the passi' dead; how often tho living
Will inyure &hcmselres- s-onl more tran
themselves Z for the sake of what
they call "respect for the memory
of the depart. some one VIII,
maybe, was once as foolish, obstinate, self
iSh, cruel as any Of us, and in death has
perpetuated the ILL doings of his life. Flom
this feeling. corrupted from II virtue into
mere superstition, many wrong, too late
discovered, which ht, years and years
before, to have been dragged to the open
day, and crushed and trampled under the
avenSing heel of righteous wrath and noble
scorn, Is hushed up, suffered to DO passed
over unrequited, bccause-alas! the wrong-
doers are now far away i'll the silent land,
where, at least, they can injure no more.
Nothing but good of the dcadl If good
cannot be spoken, then keep silence.
Yes, ordinarily. Col forbid that when
He lays Ills eternal seal upon tho quiver-
ing mouth of sinner as well as saint, ours
likewise should not respect His awful man
date and be dumb. But there nre cases in
which silence regarding :ho 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 sto"y-the
true story, alas! Of John Bowerbank's wife.
Though it happened long ago, and thcuGh
place, people, and NtrancouS circumstances
have been, l trust, cilectually disguised,
still the story itself is no invention, but
fact told to me; and l tell it, after all tho
actors therein are safely dead and gone,
as lesson to those whom it may concern
especially those who are supposed to need
mono, and yet fate often reads TO them
quietly the sharpest lesson of all-the par
cntS of grown-up children.
Lady Bowerbank was sitting quito alone,
and dressed in deep mourning, in the din
ing-room Of tho house at Queen Anne
street. She had been summoned to London
for tie first time since'her marriage, by
very sod evcEt-tho sudden death Of hel
father. He vas not an old man exactly,
and had been hitherto remarkably halo and
Ictive, living his life the life of barris-
Ter aoout town with apparent enjoyment,
making, and spending as fast as he made,
very good income, absorbed chiefly I'D
selfish | ! assures, but pleasures of per-
fectly reputable and unobjcctionablo kind.
However, in the midst OF these Death
found and called him. Some hidden heart
disease Suddenly developed itself, and he
was tIuck down while making q speech IL
court. Ills daughter acd son-in- law were
tolcgraphcd for, ut even be ORE the mes
sage reached them he was no more. They
sQrried him back from Westminster Hall tG
his own door corpse.
OF course, deep was tho sympathy witt
his family; and though since her marriage
lie had SO withdrawn himself from her that
the slender iilial relation which ever ex ct.
ed, or was likely to exist, between n loving
girl and n man SO essentially selfish, that eX.
cept by force of tho claim Of nature he hal
no right whatever to be considered n father
had become all hut nominal; still, over.
powered by the suddenncss of the stroke,
Isis daughter incurred for him monrned,
remembering not so much later years as
those early childish days when almost ey.
cry man takes n certain pleasure in patcr.
nifty, especially being father to q pretty lit.
tie girl. She recalled how ho used TO sci
her on tho table after dinner and make hcl
dance 10 him, or tako her walks i'll the park
with her best clothes on-her muslin
frocks, and blue ribbons, and her golden
hair lying about so that, infant as she was,
Bhe was fully awav >.~.ybody notice her,
and asked "Whosc charming little cir! that
was?" Halcyon days these, during which
many an imperfect nature and hard heart
ride safely over the smooth waters OF life,
to be shipwrcckod aftcrwari. 1t is not till
The storm comes that we find out the real
building and timber of the vessel.
After these days came Others, IN which,
to the best of Emly's recollection, heI
father had taken very little notice of her
for nobody noticed her now very much
She had ceased to be pretty; her beauty
was only the round rosiness of infancy,
and it slipped away and there had not We
como that beaming spiritual loreliness
which had 30 charmed tho unartistic eye
but clear head and sound Eenrt of Johi
Stenhouse So sho had been, during he
teens, n good deal neglected.; and, i'll fact
her young life had only wakened up Oh
that fatal Liverpool visit the consequence
of viii n turned the careless father into
remorseless judge--a cruel enemy.
But she forgave him that; she was read
TO forgive hlm anything, as she sat in hi
eosy-chair, before his private desk, the PA
D rg Of which Sir John, summoned bac
home Immediately after the funeral, ha
left her to examine alone; she was haunte
by sad thoughts Of her father-her ow
poor faith r-who had SO enjoyed the geo
things of this life his cosy dining room
-. his after dinner repose sleeping now, tn
Ne-st nj, hit, under ground the eternal slee
=. nth. She would have liked to THU
OF lin otherwise and otherwherc, but some
hoe could not: he had been man
essentially worldly that even after his dea