Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1894-01-26
nd she accepted Inn Immediately.

and she accepted INN Immediately.
He went the next evening to see Jo-
sephine before going to place his be-
trothal ring on Lilly's finger and told
her of his engagement. Her face was
study in which sorrow and surprise
were blended. 'sShe thinks RE an ass, y
he muttered to himself as he LETT the
house, "and she thinks alont right. y
Less than month later the fashiona-
bic columns of the daily newspapers
chronicled brilliant wedding i'll which
Mr.. Augustus Middleton and Miss Lii
liam Edgerton were the contracting par
ties. There was a trip to the Bermudas.
series of receptions in their new home,
and all the feting and attention usually
shown newly married pair.
On one Of these occasions Mrs. Mid
dleton said to her husband: ''Do you
see how devoted Fred Cartester is to
Josephine Ferris? l hope it will make
a match. -
'Josephine!'' he exclaimed in an an
noyed tone. Impossible!' He had come
to regard Josephine as his own especial
property. Surely his friend was not 60
ing to desert him too.
why impossible?" demanded Mrs.
Middleton sharply. "she is 10 older
than l and much more agreeable than
most of those chits of girls. !"
''She is 80. though you were "a. -
$50 am to the world at large. You
don't suppose any woman out of her
teens tells the truth about her age, do
your"
Mrs. Middleton had no intention that
the intimacy between her husband and
Miss Ferris should continue, and she
spoke her real sentiments when she said
she hoped for the match. It was not
made, however, and a month later Miss
Ferris left town for an extended trip
abroad.
Mr. Middleton, having married in
haste, now had time to repent at lei
sure. He found that his wife was
selfish. worldly woman, with lot lit
tie of the shrew in her makeup. She
cared nothing for him and fer his home,
only that she might exhibit its beauti-
full appointments 10 the outside world.
He missed his old friends, with whom
his wife would have nothing to do. and
he conld not endure the fashionable cir
Gle with which she surrounded herself,
so he gave his days to the club and
sighed sometimes fer the bachelor DAYS
when he was free to picture an ideal
home of domestic felicity. But if Mrs.
Middleton did nothing else for her hJs-
band. one thing she did with entire
thoroughness-she took the conceit out
OF him. He was q much smaller man
in his own estimation than when he had
offered his name and his fortune to Lii
liam EdgeTton. He knew row that he
had never loved any one but Josephine
Ferris, and he felt himself to have been
an egregious fool that he had rot tried |
to win III his mature manhood what she
had denied to his callov youth. He did |
not suspect the truth, though his wife |
did, that he would have been entirely
successful
To end in the regulation way, Mr..
Middleton ought to have found himself |
a widower at the end of the year with a
tiny baby girl dependent upon him for
love and care, and Josephine on her re-
turn from Europe should have been pre-
vailed upon to be mother to the little
creature, but things do not end in the
regulation way in real life.
On the contrary, Mrs. Middleton pre-
sented him with a bouncing boy and
was soon in the full tide Of fashionable |
life once more, and he scarcely saw Jo-
sephine again. She married an Ameri-
can artist whom she had met abroad
and removed to a distant city. while
Mr.. Middleton devoted his life to his
profession and to his children and found !
in them some of the happiness that in a
Of pique he flung away at the
Beldon ball.-Lucretia Clark in Albany
Journal,