The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-18

LOVE COULD NOT REWVIFY.
THIS MAIDEN WHOM ANONYMOUS
SANDER HAD DRIVEN
To DEATH.

TO Resuscitate Her-HOpe Twice
Lifts Her From the Grave.
From the New York World.
Torrington, Conn, July 15.-Three miles
from this beautiful old village. in the fair
est part OF Litchfeld county. lies the farm
Of William Eichner. He has prospered well
and no farmer was more contented than
he. no farmers wife and sons and daugh-
ters happier than his. The boys were hon
est and steady. the girls Of the old fash
Toned, type that holds 10 the old ideas Of
hlial and religious duty. The farmers
especial pride was his oldest daughter
Clara. tall-aud handsome and serious mind
ed, the mainstay Of her mother. This girl
was close upon eighteen years old, and
already the young men Of the country side
We're striving for her smiles.
First among these young men in devO-
ton to her MAS Louis Fritz. whose love
for her was the more intense because he
felt that the fact that he was her cousin
might stand IN his way when the time
came for him TO speak. In fact, unless
the girl herself had realized Ii, no one
knew how strongly Louis felt until the
test came. Now this young girl. despite
her goodness and her lack of cOquetry
had enemies among the other girls, whom
nature had not treated so kindly. And at
last the hatred of one of these girls be-
came so venemous that she laid plot to
ruin Clara.
Sunday, July 3, Clara went to Sunday
school in the afternoon and afterward
took a walk, as is the custom in Tor
rington, with one of the young men
whose name is Scoville. on the Tues
day following came a letter to William
Eichner. 1t was anonymous, and the
scandalous charge against his Handsome
daughter was signed only True
Friend" 1t was a specific charge. Old
Eichner know that the girl had been
walking with Scoviiie on Sunday after
noon, and mis- faith in his daughter was
not so strong as his doubt. He could
not believe that any one could be ma
licious enough to invent such a shameful
lie, so he showed the letter to the girl.
Her fathers questioning look as she
drew herself up to deny the charge IN
the letter drove the color from her face
ard made her hide her head.
"Oh, father" she said, don't you know
that II is a lie"
And the old man felt that it was, but
the doubt came and came again, and at
last he sent for the family physician. d..
Pratt. The doctor soon made the old man
realize how he had wronged his daughter
by his doubt, but the daughter hung her
head after that and was changed from
a light-he1rted girl into Inundated wo-
man.
But time might have worn this feeling
of shame away had 1t not been that
the same woman who wrote the note
spread the scandalous lie. And in few
days the whole village was talking and
every one who knew Clara knew the
miserable lie. All her good character, as
is usual went for nothing Even the
statement of the doctor was believed by
only a few. And day after day Clara
saw the older people who knew her look
ing at her pityingly or reproachfuny and
saw the younger people drawing away
from her. Some of the girls looked
straight at her and did not answer her
friendly smile and greeting others, and
these her best friends. avoided her, cross
ing the way when they saw her coming,
or, If compelled, saying a few hurried
words shamefacedly and going on. The
whole village united to deal a savage
blow at the young woman just passed
from childhood.
The blow was crushing this girl, proud
of her good name in the community
where she had been born and bred, where
she knew every living soul and had been
in the habit of meeting all on terms of
respect. on Wednesday, July 10, she
went to prayer meeting for the last time,
She then learned that aside from a few
of the young men, she had not friend
left. The succeeding days of that week
were tragic. She avoided her parents,
her brothers and sisters. She wept until
she had no more tears left.
F. Last Saturday, towards a. m, her
brother, sleeping in the bedroom next to
hers, heard groans and signs and sup
pressed screams in her room. He burst
open her door and there she lay on the
floor in her night dress in the broad
moonlight that poured through the open
window What is it,, Clara? Tell me!'
he said, kneeling beside her. "Goodby,"
she gasped; II have taken poison. I
could not bear it; God forgive me-"
He ran shouting down the stairs and.
half dressed as he was, mounted horse
brought unsaddled from the stable and
was away for the doctor. But the arsenic
and laudanum had done for her. At a.
m. she was dead.
And now the tide turned and there
were shame and sorrow in many a house.
And in one house there was a woman
who dared not look in the mirror, because
when she did she saw the face of muir
deress. But hardly any one in the little
CONGREGATIONAL church felt free from
some blame for her death.
Sunday afternoon-that is the next day
came the funeral, with the whole village
at the grave in the cemetery back of the
church. The coffin was opened just be-
fore 1t was lowered. and all pressed around
to take a last look. Many of the girls
sobbed and said: Clara, forgive me-"
and some of them shrank back. For there
was flush in her cheeks and the express
sion of the face was not the look Of death
but of life.
Almost the last to look was that young
cousin who had secretly loved her. He
was sobbing like a woman and uttering
half articulate cries that made all under
stand how he had loved her. They low
cred the coffin and the mother, drawing
from under her veil a bunch of white
roses, threw them into the grave Just
as the sexton was pushing his shovel for
the first time into the great mound of
earth beside the grave. the young cousin
rushed violently through the crowd, and
laid his hand on the sections shoulder.
"Stop!' he said, II say she is alive! Did
you not see the color in her cheeks? 1
say I saw her breathing"
A dozen voices said Yes, yes. There
was color in her face. She may be alive
And the burial was stopped, while some
ran post haste for DIR. Pratt. He came In
a few minutes. The lid was taken from
the coffin and he went down into tho
grave. He felt her pulse at the wrist
and at the heart, an the people peering
down with breathless interest, the young
cousin kneeling and praying alopd.