The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1893-01-13

u Atll6u &uu yNOunQ0Q came IN so
slowly that it was a long week before
the livery last" showed among the
list OF missing, Hugh Heriot, Major
G, Tenthinfantry.''
"Missingv Can words expound
what that one word meant in those
days? Not the sharp blow Of wound
ed which implied possible life and
g hope OF immediate repair to the suf-
terer, and all the gentle ministries to
receive one and console the other,
blessed in giving or taking. Not the
tun and desolation of Dead that left
no worse to fear nor tantalixed with
the ignis fatuus Of hope; but that one
fatal word that tortured but did not
slay; that bound the victim to the
stake and piled the fagots, but delay
ed to light the fire till the waiting
grew to be madness.
Marion was a warm hearted, imag-
NATIVE girl, and Missing" meant to
her a long chapter Of surmised
agonies. In her waking hour she fig
ured SO many and such dreadful pos
siblllries that her sleep renewed and
exaggerated, she painted such suffer-
ing for her lost lover. such terrific and
harrassing situations that it would
have been positive 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 sud-
denly and without one farewell word.
1t would have been better for Marion
had necessity forced her to exertion,
but she had enough money to live
on comfortably, 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 al
most lived out-of-door either in her
garden, which was her sole amuse-
ment 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 norm
ing in May, she stood by her door
clipping boughs of hawthorn from her
one cherished tree. placed them beside
the apple blossoms she had already
gathered in a large basket. There,
too, were sheaves of pale nlarclssus,
trails OF heaven blue mytle, punches
OF the later snowdrops 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 ceme-
terry and add her share to the honor
OF the few dead soldiers who slept in
that small and shaded place of rest.
It smote her every year to think of
that unhonored place where her lovers
body rested, for long ago she had
given up hope for his life. Who
covered his grave with flowers or foil
age? Who prayed over his last sleep?
the thought stung her again and she
took from the door step a smaller
basket of wild flowers with which she
always dressed the low mound above
her mother, and taking the larger one
on her arm, went over to the school
house, where the young village
girls were making wreaths and
boduets. 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 dis
tant music Of the band to send it's
wailing requiem from the church steps,
where the procession was just enter
ing; she heard the slow toll of the bell
that always rang knell in Alton on
Decoration day she knelt by the head
stone OF her mothers resting place,
and leaningher head against it sobbed
bitterly, and spoke aloud in her re-
awakened sorrow, knowing there was
no ear to hear: "Oh, Hugh; my Hugh!
if | could but know where you are ly-
ing! II could only see your grave. It
would be a help! But you have gone
into darkness, and the place of your
sephulchre no man knoweth unto this
day. Why, why cannot go, too?"
Marion" said q voice. She lifted
her quiverine lips. Hugh stood before
her. With low cry she fell across
her mothers grave and lay at his
feet.
She knew no more till she came
back to life on her own sofa, with
Hugh kneeling beside her, and the vii
lage doctor dropping some pungent
fluid slowly into her lips. She looked
at her dead-alive lover with anxious
asking eyes.
~ am not Hugh; I am Sandy" he
said, sadly, but distinctly, Yet he
was Hugh to her eyes and her heart;
every line answered to line in the
strong fine face except that it was