The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-04-26

voluntarily udu0, uo tOlu uluiSel1 tldt
foolish vows ought never to be kept.
The strangest part of it all to him was
that she did not reproach him with hav-
ing broken his word. But she did not
think he had broken it-only that he
was wearily long about beginning to
fulfill it.
A bitter season set in, and Sir Hum
phrey, looking at his wife's thin cheek
and the darkening trouble about her
eyes, bethought him of taking her to
some gay city, to a genial climate and
the novelty Of strange faces and places.
He had watched her walking to and fro
among his comfortable tenantry, i'll and
out of their warm, wholesome dwell
ings, and he knew what brought the
quiver of pain across her eyes. She was
thinking of that dreary hoyel among the
Connaught hills. Where the sun always
shines he thought she would forget how
cold and hunger sting. So the Christ
mas guests were put off, and Sir Hum
phrey and Lady Gilbert went to winter
at Florence.
Uncomplainingly Macha did her hus
bands bidding. She said to herself,
"When we come back, early in the
spring, he will take me or let me 60"
In the mild air of Italy she did not
realize so keenly the well remembered
rigors of the Connaught winter. Her
imagination was caught by the beauties
that surrounded her, and for a little
time Sir Humphrey thought his triumph
was at hand. It was but an accident
that turned the scale against him and
made shipwreck of his plans and of
Macha's life. Accident or fate led Lady
Gilbert, who rarely looked at anything
printed, to glance into the columns of
an English newspaper, and paragraph
met her eye in which certain rough
statements were made regarding fam
inc of food and fuel in certain parts of
hungry and melancholy Connaught.
Instantly her long suffering patience
gave way, and all the latent fire of her
nature burst forth. She flew to her hus-
band, with burning eyes, and laid her
finger on the cruel lines. Sir Hum
phrey was in an irritable humor. Cut
off from his customary country pursuits,
idling in foreign city, he had fallen
into play and had lost heavily the night
before this eventful morning. The sight
of his wife's feverish emotion made him
angry. Her passionate demand to be
sent with succor to her people chafed
and bewildered him. Mncha! for whose
good he had inconvenienced himself SO
seriously, left his home in winter, low
cred himself to sit at the table with
gamblers! Macha to rise and turn on
him with those flaming eyes! He met
her with fiat denial and uttered some
bitter reproaches, upbraiding her with
her imprudence and persistent folly.
Having begun to give little vent to
his displeasure, he ended by saying
more than he had ever meant to say.
He refused to believe in the newspapers s
tale of distress and forbade her to men-
tion her people again.
Macha stood like one stunned, slowly
taking in w at his angry words con-
veyed. As she had believed his words
before, so she believed them now. They
fell upon her like blows, and when he
had turned harshly away and left her
under sentence of his displeasure one
only desire and determination possessed
her-to get away out of this cruel world
of plenty and bring food and comfort to
her famishing mother. She did not
weigh the consequence of defying her
husband. Her agony and longing blot
ted out even tie memory of his exist
ence.
How she made her way to Connaught
who shall tell? AS the lioness finds her
stolen young, so did Macha scent the
path to her native hills. Accustomed to
rely upon her husband for everything,
to follow his instructions and mark out
nothing for herself, she must have made
almost supernatural exertions to accom-
plish her end. But accomplish it she did.
When her husband returned that night,
half angry and half relenting, revolving
plans for reconciliation, taking counsel
with himself as to how he ought to deal
with her, knowing very well that he
meant to send largess to those crea-
lures on the mountain who were such a
thorn in his side-when he came back
to his home, Macha was gone
Dismay, anger, tepBor, all passed
through and over him. He first swore
and condemned her, then remembered
her sweet face and her former patience
and almost forgave her. Uneasily he re-
solved to let her go and have her way.
He had given her money yesterday,
commanding her to spend is on her own
amusement For the present she could
not want. and this reckless visit would
be sure to tame her. Very soon she
would be glad to return to him on any
terms Thus torn by distracting
thoughts Sir Humphrey went back alone
to his English home Pride, obstinacy
and the conviction that his wife was
wrong and required punishment and
humiliation prevented his following her.
The sun was setting behind whitened
peaks when Macha came YEARLY up the
last ascent of the hills. There were the
bare scanned levels the weird rocks,
the scant green patches, the dark mys-
ferrous looking lake. "Oh, God, l have
returnedr' broke from her. ''There
is my mothers cabin !" The fierce
ache that had gnawed her heart
suddenly left it, and a glow of
satisfaction went tingling through her
veins. Strange, instructive, unreasoning
love of home and kindred that can for
bid human being to accept ease and
pleasure in exchange for the suffering
of want Macha, who had been delivered
over to abundance and luxury, cast them
from her like broken fetters and rushed
forward into the embraces of her old