Lawrence democrat. (Lawrenceburg, Tenn.) 1884-1925, 1894-02-23

ll1t lrOm WulCH
oil worth had departed would have be-
longed partly to them and not been
hers in fee simple to have and to hold
and dispose of as she thought fit
If her parents were still living, and
she had brothers and sisters, instead of
being an only child, and an orphan,
there would be still another side to the
question she had decided within the
last hour. Blood relations might be
SAID to have residuary claim upon her
estate, represented by her existence
and affections. She had no other
wealth.
The Christians belief and hope would
have offered prospective rights to one
who endured Christening, and endured
1t to the end; there was great deal
about endurance in the Bible she used
to read.
She smiled drearily at finding her
self using legal terms at the supreme
moment of her life. Yet what
wonder? For twenty years her hus-
bands studies and habits of thought
had been hers; they twain had been
one soul, as one flesh. Love for him
had been her religion. To doubt him
would be the loss of salvation to this
idolater in Christian land.
Something worse than doubt was
upon her now-the certainty Of ship
wreck, of desolation, Of hopeless and
irretrievable loss.
She was forty-two years old. Women
who have married for love, and faith
full, loving husbands, and romantic
young people who scout the thought of
wedding for anything except pure and
undying affection, laugh in chorus at
the suggestion of love affair between
IT,, people who have sustained the con-
jugal relation toward one another for
twenty years. Heart-break is the pre-
negative of unwedded lovers. The for
saken mistress may go mad, curse God
and man, and die, and the world-even
the world of good men and women
shudders and weeps. The very title Of
''wife" acts as a cold-water douche to
sentimental enthusiasm.
The woman who sat in the dark
library of her beautiful home, facing
the lighted window of her neighbours
house, over which the Holland shade
had fallen an hour ago, would have
recognized this truth if she had con-
fronted it. As it was, she neither
thought of nor cared what the world
might think or say.
In society Mrs. Mott was reckoned a
popular woman. She was pleasing in
person and address and talked we'll
Being happy herself, she liked to see
Others happy, and showed tact and
skill in bringing this about, but she
had only one intimate friend of her
own sex, Mrs. Holman who lived next
door, widow, gentle of voice and
sweet-faced, perhaps five years her
friends junior, the mother of three
children. The intimacy between the
two matrons was of dozen years
standing, dating back to the removal
of the rising lawyer and his wife into
the house,adjoining that owned and oc-
cupied by the well-to-do widow. Con-
geniality Of tastes and harmony OF
opinion upon many subjects at first
drew the women into mutual liking;
numberless acts of neighborly kind
ness eemented friendship into affection,
none the less firm for not being dem.
onstrative In their most confidential
intercourse they never called one an.
other by their Christian names, they
INDUCED in no foolish fondlings oil
wordy protestatons.
0nce-three years ago, Mrs. Holman
had said in a moment of unusual eff
fusiveness to David Mott in his wife's
hearing;
II have known but one woman in al
my life who met my every requisition
n b friend, and that is Mrs. Mott She