St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-12-24

Full YOUNG WRETCH AGAIN |"
ing foes. AS girl she had been very hand
some, with peculiarly lovely auburn hair, and
the most delcately modelled hands, of a sur
passing whiteness. When her husband died
she immersed herself in the deepest mourning,
and suffered agonies of grief. 1t was even said
that she might have died, too, but for the
cheering offices of her son and only child,
Livingston Van Wagenen, a widower with two
little girls, Kate and Margaret.
But within the next two years fate struck
Mrs. Wagenen second blow. This son, Liv-
ingston, then a prosperous New York lawyer,
was suddenly stricken with a fever from which
he soon afterwards died. The little girls came
to dwell with their grandmother, in the big,
solemn Broadway house, once so renowned for
its gayeties and Inequalities.
A dreary childhood they both had of it. Mrs
Van Wagenen was afflicted by a trouble with
her eyes which the oculists of that day unhesi-
tatingly declared to have been brought about
by excessive weeping She was threatened
with blindness for years, but the menace kept
hanging over her without actually rendering
her sghtless.
She adored her grandchildren, and yet she
reared them with great strictness. 1t was her
desire that they should both marry with dis
tinction, and sometimes she would sharply
chide the eldest, Kate, for declaring that she
never meant to marry at all. Kate was small
of stature, and not in the least pretty, though
very gentle and engaging in manners. Mar
garet, on the other hand, was blooming and
graceful, with liquid, sparkling blue eyes and
the same glossy auburn hair which had been
one of her grandmother's chief charms, though
every thread of Mrs. Van Wagenen's tresses
had turned white.
Margaret loved her grandmother even more
dearly than did her elder sister. But she was
wilful, sometimes recklessly vivacious, and
often stealthily disobedient as well. In her
seventeenth year she became acquainted with
a handsome young actor, named Ross Erskine,
an Englishman, who had set the town talking
of his poetic eyes and his Byronic profile and
his symmetric figure.
Mrs. Van Wagenen lived much indoors, and
her failing strength now prevented her from
using over her grandchildren the same surveil-
lance as of old. Certain imprudent friends of
Margaret's had gone with her more than once
to the theatre where Ross Erskine played.
There had come meeting between the young
actor and his infatuated admirer. All this
Kate had concealed with tortures of conscience.
Passionately she had implored her sister to
break forever with the young adventurer who
so captivated her girlish heart. She might as
well have spoken to one of the bleak December
winds that whirled, full of powderly snow, up
along Broadway from the ice-bound parapets of
the Battery. On Christmas eve of all other
times of the year, foolish Margaret took mad
and irrevocable step. She eloped with Ross
Erskine, leaving letter to her sister in which
she implored Kate to break the news to their
grandmother.
And on Christmas morning Kate broke it.
Atfirst Mrs. Van Wagenen stared bewilderedly
upon her grandchild, with her dim. pathetic
eyes. Then, realizing all, she drew herself UP
with a majesty that breathed strongly of her
patrician past.
Never shall L look upon the ungrateful
young wretch again she cried. " In the name
of all the Van Wagenens, I, their head, thei1
representative, disown her forever!''
After that poor Kate had to spring forward
and catch her staggering form. She tainted
completely away, and on reviving;wept torrents
of fiery tears. 1t was indeed dolorous Christ
mas for the girl who watched over her from
morning till long past midnight. And on the
morrow, when she again stood by her grand
mothers bedside, she was pierced by the dis
covery that the old lady had become com
pletely blind.
At first, Mrs. Van Wagenen was very help
less. After few weeks, however, she grew
habituated to her affection. AS spring ad