Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-07-15

what is called really beautiful-not as" Aunt Jessie glanced across at me here, for the first time, then was silent for g moment, checking the words that had risen to her lips" but she was wonder fully pretty, and winning in every way. She had happy eyes, with coaxing laughter in them, and bright, funny words to say to all-just like Gerard and no wonder, was it, that her mothers heart was wrapped in her, and that her fathers pride in her grew with her growth? She had a way of running and singing about the house like Q child, as glad and gay as if young brothers and sisters had been growing up with her here in the solitary farm, where hardly another young voice ever echoed, and hardly another young footstep ever trod.
 "So, being what she was, was it any wonder that the farm felt like prison to the mother often thought it must have felt like terrible grave-after she was goneP Never mind how the news first came to us that she had left her home and us-that is not night which I dare live over again, even after two and-twenty years. We knew 1t, and you may fancy what darkness fell upon us all in one sudden moment, darkness of 
 we'll as the despair of seeing our idol-- and our faith, too, with it-shattered on the hearth which had been all our world.
 "He had been in the neighborhood for some weeks, for the sake of the fish | ing: but he had been no more to us than other gentlemen who would come and stay at the village inn for a week or . month at time in the fishing season. We all knew him by sight and name, but that was all. We knew nothing, until afterward, of how he haunted the farm after he had once seen your moth- CT, and of how she met him day after day in the little wood beside the river, to hear him plead for a consent which had been given before we knew of this. It is no use my telling you of the part ing kisscs which she took from us that night, we all unconscious that they were SO. When you are able to think calmly of that time, all those things will seem plain to you.
 "After that day her mother went about the farm as if she had been in 8 dream; a long, gloomy dream, from | which now and then she woke with a start, only to fall back into 1t again | when her husbands harsh words had ceased to rouse her. For he was harsh then, Gerard dear and were there not reason and excuse for him?
 "And so a little more than a year went on, and then we noticed a change in your grandmother. She would shake and flush at every sound, would start and give little involuntary cry if her husband spoke suddenly to her, and she seemed to be forever listening for some- thing apart from any sound in the house I nE I change for some time before Hiram did, for he was just as slow then to observe the people about him as he is now, | though never so hard and cold-I would have you know that of your grandfather, Gerard dear. But I could not win her to tell me why it was. From that night of Mays fiGht-we shortened your mothers name to May, though we have never shortened yours, Magdalen-she seemed to shrink little both from your grandfather and myself; but ten times more so after there came upon her this change I tell you of.
 cone night-it was a late summer night, nnd the rain was falling and the wind was high-your grandfather came homo unexpectedly. He had gone to a ranged to stay all night: and when he came, wet and tired, straight into the kitchen here, where l sat alone at my sewing, knew in a moment, as plain as if somebody had told me, that there was some trouble behind him which I couldn't see yet.
 "'Where's Mary?' he asked, so sharply that the answer would not ct first come to my lips.
 "Out in the village I said, at last, speaking as naturally as could. 'She said she was going to see the poor old woman at the toll-house.'
 "'Down the river lane won't lead hel to the toll-house,' he said very roughly. 'There's only the keepers cottage through the wood, and there's nobody sick to go and see there.'
 "And then he turned away, and went out again into the rain, in his best clothes and hat, just as he was. Sc frightened his words had made me though couldn't have told whY-that caught up shawl and followed him. didn't mind the rain either; don't re- member that even felt it. overlook him before he hHrl reached the outer gate, but he didn't speak a word to ma not even to ask me what wanted-as we walked on together.
 "Well, we reached the keepers cot tage and walked straight iu without rap ping. never Knew your grandfatner 70 do such a thing before, hut he did il without hesitation that night, I follow ing him into the shelter and the fire light, with my heart beating almost aloud. There, before the fire, on 6 low rocking chair, sat your grandmother, and on her lap you lay, Gerard, wide awake and laughing; while, in cradle ct her feet, Magdalen lay sleeping. "Shall ever forget what those first few minutes were like to all of us-to mG in my surprise and fear, to Mary in hel pitying love and her timidity, to Hiram in his awful anger2 We can never, any
 of us, live through that hour again thank Godl
 Gerard, your mother lay there dy ing in the room beyond us, and hel father would not see her, I need no tell you what he sald With cruel word
 still ringing from his lips, he went ava.