The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1890-06-05

SuII 1853. 104S6 Vl8rlSS8 COX was 10 Do
at last, and to 80 very ordinary
. 2craoa as Mr.. Septimus Sowerby.
Tie villagers thought their Devon
shire Rose might have done better. but
were careful not to tell her 80; and
every body was rejoiced at the prospect
0f . wedding among the gentry"
which was certain to mean q bountiful
feed for every boly. and scarce sober
man to be counted in the village for
twenty-four hours after. Mr.. Sowerby
had no family to inform of his plans,
and it would have been beneath his dig
nifty to write the news to any one in his
bank; 50 when, at the end of month,
he returned to town, to make certain
arrangements, no one suspected the
vast stride in life he had made, though
every body observed that he looked
quite ten years younger, and had grown
almost good-looking.
That youthful look lasted fully three
days after his return; but one evening
returning home tired, after looking at
many houses, not one of which boosted
the airiness and space upon which
Clarissa insisted, he sat down in his
familiar old leather chair. and terrible
heart sinking came upon him.
He turned pale. glancing round him
at his beloved books, his writing-tab BILE,
his choss-board and his modest collec-
ton of pipes, and the sort of litter that
bachelor of lonely tastes gets about
him in the course of long bachelor
hood, and which women LOOK upon as so
much dust-laden rubbish.
"Where shall put them?' he said
aloud, in helpless voice; land she said
once that playing chess for hours
against ones self was selfish; wonder
what she would say If she knew l play
often till four o'clock in the morning?
''She's not very fond of books-only in
moderation. She says nature is the
best book we've got, and the more we
study it the better We are; and after nat
ure (miles behind. she says), human
natures the next best interesting study,
and if we study the one we're able to
understand the other, and so do twice
as much good in the world as by indulg-
ing ourselves over what other folk write
and think.
"Perhaps she'll want to 20 into So
ciety, perhaps she'll want to entertain;
Perhaps but at this moment his good
spirit moved him to look at the bonnie,
blooming face in the locket on his
watch chain, and as he gazed upon her
the selfish demon in his breast fed, and
from that moment all matters connected
with his matrimonial preparations pros
pered.
On the evening before the wedding he
returned to Little Chinook, shrinking
somewhat into himself when he found
the village street spanned by arches and
the whole place looking as if Flora had
been engaged in emptying her cornu.
copia upon it since early morn.
Every embarrassing" he said to him.
self, as he tried to slip into his hotel
unobserved; wish it had been in town,
COMPOUNDED nuisance when every man,
woman and child in the parish has 9
personal interest in the bride.''
But possibly Miss Clarissa liked it.
II won't!' The two words rang out
loudly through the flower-decked
church; rang discordantly in the ears OF
the bride, Of the bridesmaids, of the
scandalized clergyman and of the gap
ing congregation; rang most horribly OF
all in the ears of the bridegroom, by
whose mouth a fiend, surely, had elect
ed to speak.
He had said them. That he had never
meant to say them mattered not Said
they were, and abide by them he would.
Pale he was, indeed, but resolute as
death.
"Wilt thou have this women to be thy
welded wife?" and the rest. He had
followed every word of it, and he had
opened his lips to say manly Il will,
and something that was not him, and
yet was his inner self, had answered
for him, and the irrevocable had taker
place.
Clarissa had turned from a pink rose
to a very white one. To do her Justice
she dearly loved her little man, and
when the awful syl LA bles burst upon bel
ear and brain, she stretched out he1
hands to him with swift pity, believing
he had gone mad; but, seeing hersel
mistaken, she drcw up her tall, fine
shape, took her sisters arm, and will
stately steps and calm brow passed
down the steps and aisle, and so out O
the church door. The bridal carriag,
was in waiting, and they did not ever
draw down the blinds as they drov,
away.
The clergyman had angrtly Whispered
iuop int NJ ~h,xsc l.
., which that gentleman had responded
by merely putting up his hand, as if t.
brush away fly, and then, with al
amount Of quiet dignity that surprised
every one, he, too, walked down tn,
steps, picked his way so as not to treat
upon the flowers that strewed til.
chancel, and so through the church
yard, with its amazed crowds, to thu
village inn.
Many hostile demons trations met ant
followed him, but to the threats of tn,
enraged Hodge, ay, and even to thei1
squared fists, he opposed an unruffled
calm; nor, indeed, did it leave him whe1
he found himself in his sweet-smellinl
parlor with the old hat and gloves OF
the table that half an hour ago he hat
likened to the bachelors skin he wa
casting.
He sat down, and his thoughts flew Il
his chambers and his well-read books
his obedient kings and queens ant
pawns, to the quiet hours of meditation
that he loved, but above all to the FREQ
dom to which he was returning.
Freedom! az, that it was which hat
cried out to him. in one mortal cry
when at the point of death. and ssvee
him alive; no demon, as he had thought
but the vital quality without which hi
could not live, and that he had beer
about to barter away for face like
rose, and some fresh, sweet, womanlJ
ways! He drew paper and ink toward
him and wrote:
Ihave insulted you, and for that insult
win make sny reparation you may think At 4
name. I 10, ed You. shall never love any othel