The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1896-05-15
TRUE TO HIS LOVE.
A HUSBAND WHO CHERISHED THE
MEMORY OF HIS DEAD WIFE.

an up town hotel office, cOnversing i'll
an insouciant and nonchalant manner
with the naughty and imperious clerk,
as reporters always do, when nice
looking old gentleman, with just enough
provincialism in his appearance to show
that he was not New Yorker, though
he might have come from Philadelphia
or any other rural district, came up to
the register as if he had been there be-
fore and wrote his name and address.
In few minutes the clerk had sent
him off to his room with IL bellboy and
resumed his conversation.
Queer old chap" he said, nodding
in the direction of the departing guest.
The reporter whirled the register
around to look at the name.
"Yes?" he replied questioningly. Il
see that he has signed himself and wife.
Where's the wife? In the ladies parlor?"
That's the queer part Of it, " contin-
ued the clerk with an evident purpose
of telling n story, and the reporter be-
came interested. ''There isn't any wife
He's a widower, and has been for 10
years, but he has been signing it that
way for the ten years have known
him He is now 60, and was married at
40, and the romance is as pretty as it
is pathetic. -
"And unusual, =" ventured the report
er, ''if he is faithful to the memory of
one woman, and that woman his wife
Widowers are not all So "
THAT is why this ones story is the
more interesting. Let me tell you. At
no oil in,
ern town and was Economically and
deeply in love with pretty girl of 20
1t may be said that she was in love
with him, too, but he had queer no.
tons, and as they were both poor, and
rich man was anxious to marry the
girl, he never told his love, but let con-
cealment, like a worm i'll the bud, feed
on his damask cheek as it We're, and he
pined in thought and with q green and
yellow melancholy sat, like patience ON
monument, while the other man mar
ried her.
AT 81 she was a widow and poor,
for her husband had dissipated his for
tune, and our friend here. still a bach
elor and as much i'll love as ever, was a
successful merchant. This time he was
Drawer, for he was possessed of the sim
ews of war, and within q years time
he had married her. twas rather hasty
on her part, possibly, but he had wait
ed long enough and was SO importunate
that she compromised with him on one
year instead of the regulation two of
widowhocd They came to this hotel
on their wedding tour and We're here
two weeks, and one of the proprietors
of the hotel informs me that he never
has seen couple more suited to each
other and better satisfied with each 9TH
er After that he came to the city in the
spring and autumn to buy goods, and
she always accompanied him, and they
seemed to be no farther away from the
honeymoon season with each recurring
year.
"At last, after the fifth spring trip,
he did not come, but his manager did,
and he said that the wife had died and
the husband s mind was affected, though
they hoped he would come around all
right III time In the following spring
he came again, but he was not the same
man any more. His mind was clear on
all business matters, but he was queer
about his wife, and sadder faced man
couldn't be found anywhere. The old
clerk, who had been at the counter on
his previous visits, was there when he
came again, and after greeting him
pleasantly turned the register around
for him to sign it. He responded us usu-
al, and when the clerk looked at the
name it was followed as before by and
wife, as he had been accustomed to
sign it. The clerk was about to call his
attention to it, but second thought
prompted him not to notice it, and he
sent the guest to the bridal chamber,
the room he and his wife always occu-
pied, as they did ON their first visit.
During his stay Of week he had
very little to say, and if any reference
was made to his wife ne responded rs if
she We're still alive and was with him
at the hotel. At the table, too, he had
a place for her, and her meals We're
served as if she had bean there to eat
them. When he was ready to go and
came for his bill, it was made out as
usual, and he paid for two people with
out comment Ten years ago, when l
came into the office, l received my in
structions concerning our peculiar guest
and have since my first meeting him
acted with him exactly as if he were ac-
companied by his wife. l have learned
that he follows the same course in all
that he does i'll any way connected with
her. He buys two railroad tickets, two
theater tickets, two places i'll any con-
veyance two everything, where she
might have gone with him, and on trips
where she would not have accompanied
him in life, such as short trips from his
town or to affairs of any kind where it
was probable she would not have cared
to go, he provides only for himself. He
seems to understand what she would be
doing all these years and acts accord
ingly. You noticed him sign that regis
ter and g off up stairs?" concluded the
clerk. We'll, be does all the rest i'll the
same confident way, just as if she We're
with him and his first consideration
was for her. "
You may not be Il poet" said the
reporter, but the story you tell is a
poem that all men should learn and
cherish i'll their hearts. New York
Sun.
USES OF COLLEGE TRAINING.
Not to Make Experts, hut to Fit Men For
Large, Intelligent Work.
1T is not entirely safe to claim that
every kind of success, even of legitimate
success, will be promoted by college
training, writes Rev. Charles H. Park
hurst, d. D., i'll The Ladies Home Jour
nal. IF 1 had boy for whom It was
my supreme ambition that he should be-
come rich, l should not send him 10 col
lege. SO far from helping his prospects
in that direction it would probably dam
age them. Money making is trick.
The easy acquisition Of it is knack 1t
involves the condensation of interest |
and faculty along particular line, and
that narrow line. There is nothing to |
hinder very small man from being
very wealthy one. Shrewdness does not |
imply a bigmindedness. 1 might say
with a good deal Of assurance that it |
implies the contrary. And shrewdness
has more than anything else to do with |
the acquisition Of gain.
"Thcre are great many things that |
can be best done by the man WHO docs |
not know too much, or, at least, by the |
man whose intelligence is concentrated |
pt n single Dpiut or ALONG n single line