The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1893-08-09

The DAY We buried nef; 1t ralned on the
day she was married and no doubt on
the day she was born. So had been her
life, always listening to the ''fitful sigh
ing of the rain!'
The rector was absent during the time
our strange visitor was sick. He re-
turned on the evening before she was
buried. | heard him coming up into the
study. The crazy woman was lying in
her shroud in the room below, with a
calm serenity upon her face and with a
few choice dollhouse flowers looped
among her dark curls. The kind hands
of little Carrie had done that.
The rector was somewhat startled
when he beheld me sitting in the study
instead of Mr.. Ashley. He, however.
reached out his hand quite cordially.
"You seemed troubled" said.
II have much to trouble me, Jenny"
he said sorrowfully, ''yet l am still
thankful that God gives me strength to
bear it all. You have been writing?"
eyes, was writing to you. 1t is not
necessary now. You are wanted to Off
ciate at funeral"
sis it possible? Any of the parish
toner's dead?'
mo, it is strange woman who died
here-a crazy woman
Oh, how white his face grew! He
caught at the table for support
"Died where?" he asked huskily.
Here, in the house." I replied won
deringly. ''She is lying in the parlor,
arrayed for the tomb"
He looked at me for moment; his
eyes grew very much like hers in their
vacant stare; then he took up the lamp,
forgetting that he was leaving me in the
darkness and passed down stairs. I fol-
lowed him. impelled by a thought that
made me shudder just then because it
thrilled my veins with sort Of pleasure.
The rector was kneeling beside the
corpse, kissing the cold lips and MUIR
muring, ooh. Elsie! my wife! my beauti
full onew
Again that thought flashed through
my brain. She was indeed the rector's
wife, and the thought would sooner
shape into certainty. There was a
choking sensation in my throat, but ere
could turn away the rector saw me.
He motioned me to his SIDE but without
getting up from his knees.
what did she tell your" he asked.
''She told me nothing about herself or
the past. | heard you call her wife"
Eyes, she was my wife. She is at rest
now, and it is better for her and for me.
No prayers need be offered up for a soul
so kind and so good as hers was
He said nothing more just then, which
in manner surprised me. He rose up,
folded his arms and gazed steadfastly
into the face of the dead. A scalding
tear fell upon my hand. He seemed to
have forgotten that | was near him, and
Tsto]e up into my room to weep. But
in tho pulpit, when he preached the fu-
neral sermon of his own once beautiful
wife, he explained it ALL Many eyes
filled with tears then, and the hearts Of
the people went out further than ever
toward their suffering pastor.
The remainder of the story is soon
told. Insanity had been hereditary in
the family Of the rectors wife. She
knew it, but had not dared to tell him
of it. The dread presentiment that she
would eventually fall victim to the
horrid disease draped many hours that
otherwise would have been joyous ones
in the blackness of night.
At last it came in the third year of
her marriage, and the poor, almost heart
broken rector was compelled to send her
IN an insane aSv117m He visited bnr