St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-08-11
WAS IT HER GHOST?
How a Husbands Scheme to
Secure His Wife's Fort
une Failed.
A Strange Vision in the Night
Time and What Came
Of It.
Remarkable Story Of an Old
Will Found in a Fam
lily Bible.
A Mysterious Visitor and the
Very Peculiar Message
It Brought.

enjoyed the dlStlnctl0n OE Delng tHc
leader of the bar of Our state. When 1
was admitted, there was, therefore, a
place and practice all made and ready
for me. But with the ardor and ambi-
ton of youth 1 declined the support OF
the maternal arms, and determined to
strike out for myself. So it was that L
left my native place and settled down
practice in larger aud buster city i'll
nv native state. Shortly afterward nay
brother returned from Europe, where
he had been pursuing his studies as
physician, and determined on the same
city as the field of his own professional
labors. We lived together as young
bachelors in chambers.
We had been thus settled for year or
more, with fair prospects OF success 1of
both of us, when [ received from my
father letter inclosing a heavy packet
of papers. He wrote: II send you the
papers in case i'll which we have been
retained. 1t is an important case,
strange case. one that will command
great attention, and l desire you TO have
the entire and exclusive management OF
it, as it will serve to bring you at once
to the front. 1t is full of difficulties, and
you will be opposed by several OF the
ablest lawyers in the state. Make the
best fight you can" An examination
of the case disclosed the following facts:
Miss Betsy and Her Niece.
There had lived in the same city in
which then resided lady who had
died two years before, leaving large
fortune and strange, unnatural Will.
She was widely and most favoraDly
known In the best circles OF society as
woman of unusual thought and cult
ure, though of a singularly sensitive
and shrinking nature. she was dc,
vout Christian, devoted to the work OF
her church, and no day OF her me
passed without some act OF noble but
transformations charity. She was mus
loved and respected by all, but ldollZed
by the poor. From her door. at which
every form of human misery
presented itself. none ever passed
unrelieved. Until her forty-seventh
wear she remained single, having no
other persons in her house than her
niece and the necessary retinue of serv-
anes. This niece was the child OF her
only sister, who died in giving her
birth, and who had from that sad mo-
ment been taken by her good aunt. and
was afterward treated as her daughter.
The name of the lady up to her mar
rage and the one by which she was
still best known was Miss Elizabeth
Thornton: that Of her niece was Flor
ence Farren. ''Miss Betty" for so she
was universally called, loved her niece
with all that passion of tenderness and
completeness of devotion which marx
those lonely lives bereft OF all
human ties but one, and which press
into a single channel all the forces OF a
heart hungry for human sympathy ana ana
kinship. So sheltered, treated. ana
loved. Florence grew i'll every girlish
| groce. in all youthful accomplishments,
and at the time when l first saw her was
standing on the threshold of a superb
Womanhood, and with her hair of chest
nut. her dark brown, luStrous, fath0m-
less ewes. her oval face OF perfect line
and peerless color, her Greeian nose
with thin flexible nostrils. telling, OF
blue blood; her perfect mouth; her
straight, slight, yet completely rouhoed
form. she was almost Incompatible III
the beauty of her person.
Married mt tho Age of Forty-Seven.
So lovely we're the lines of "Miss
Betty's" life, so serene, so happy. that
no one ever dreamed that she would
marry. But marriage Is subject on
which no woman's mind is ever dctlii-
! itely made up, and "Miss Betty" at
| forty-seveu, found no exception to the
rule. A man had not long before came
to reside Ill this city who said he came
| from Virginia and that his name was
Hillyard. He, after some time. found
| the church to which miss Betty, De-
in n
| day school and her various charitable
schemes. and before long, and to the
| surprise of the whole community, they
| were one day married.
! Soon after this he built splendid
mansion, but even then it was whispered
| that it was Miss Betty's money that
paid for it. No MATERIAL things seemed
| for the time to go sWimmlngly with
| them. He brought to his new home
| his two grown daughters, and their ell
| tertainmeuts we're OH the grandeSt scale.
| But after while it began to be said
| that miss Betty was not happy In her
married life, and a little later her
| health began to fail. People said that
| Hillyard was not only schemlng. but
| brutal fellow, and that in his anger
| he terribly abused his sensitive, shrink
ing and now Sickly wife. At last miss
Betty" appeared no more IN her accus-
toned walks, her pew was now never
occupied. day by day she grew thinner,
distressing, nervous cough seized her'
She took to her bed. and III less imam
three wears from her bridal she was
borne awav to the grave. Her silence
was never broken.
An Unnatural Will.
A few days aft r her death her hus-
band offered her will for probate-a will
| which shocked the moral sense of the
| whole community, for by it she be
/ uueathed her entire estate OF over hall
| a million to her husband and his two
| Misunderstanding Off her dearly be.
| loved niece, the daughter of her adOp-
ton. whom she had brought uD to the
| lavish use of wealth and all the needs
| which it engenderS. with bare pit
lance of $4,000.
| People said that there must be some
| thing wrong about the will and the way
! in which it had been obtained. But al
examination showed that the Will haG
| been drawn by a lawyer of good stand
ing. and witnessed by two gentlemen Of
known integrity in the community
Even Miss Florence Farren, when
called her attention to it, said that SHE
had never heard a complaint from hel
aunt, or had never seen or heard any
act or word of violence on the part oil
Hillyard toward his wife. But she die
not reside in the house with them aftel
the first three months Of their marriage
having been sent to a distant board
ing school, so there was no earthly
chance to show .'undue influence" III
the procurement of the will, although
everybody i'll the community believed
that there had been. Everything about
the will was regular, and nowhere was
there room for doubt. The one singu
lar thing in addition to the shocking
unnaturalness of its terms was that the
lawyer who drew the will was not Mrs
HilIyard's regular legal adviser. mol
were the witnesses her particular
friends, bu; they. both lawyers and wit
nessas we've ahaye rpnruach. These