Catoctin clarion., 1896-09-10
TURMONT Frederick County, Maryland Thursday September TO- 1896

it's freshest and strongest, enjoying their
best years together, instead Of looking
back upon them some day wistfully, as
the very springtimo Of their lives un-
spent?
She was only Is, but her mother had
been rs young before her when she had
run away with Charles, Lord Strauben-
zee, and she had never repented it. That
she had died young and most passionate
ly loved was only another proof Of her
great good luck, though for Mamie per-
haps it was i'll. Who should say? For
there are times when a woman child
wants her mother badly.
Perhaps if Mamie had como back
then, bringing Will, and they had plead
cd their cause well, they would have
won him over, but some one else came
instead, man with dark foreign face,
who passed rapidly over tho shingle,
pushed small boat into the sea and
pulled swiftly away
He was young, he was handsome. but
his face was stamped with 50 awful a
look Of hate that you knew instinctively
he came straight from some scene that
had violently reused in him all his worst
passions and seemed in such violent
haste to be gone that in very short
time he had passed out Of sight round
tho cliff.
He had scarcely disappeared when the
girl III whom Mamie had taken SO great
an interest appeared, walking slowly,
~ nd
Straubenzce sat down close to the wa
ter, at a little distance, apparently un-
conscious of his neighborhuod.
There is in Ill ages a type of woman
whom you may call Mary or Magdalene,
which you will, but without being able
perhaps to tell the color Of her hair or
tho formation Of her features she will
instantly satisfy some divine craving
for beauty in you, and you will ask no
more than to gaze and gaze again, feel
ing that
"The world has done her duty"
Looking at the outline Of tho face
rested or the girls c!aspcd hands, Lord
Straubenzce felt sudden pity move
him, for which his sense of the beauti-
full was distinctly responsible, and he no
longer wondered at Nannie's s keen inter
ost in and admiration for her.
"Such woman in such a place |" he
said to himself, and tho man in the
boat was her lover, Of course, and she
had sent him away, and now she was
sorry, after the manner of women, and
then he saw Coleman coming, who, tread
ing delicately over the pebbles that We're
one of the passing miSfortunes OF an ex-
cellent situation, and, with no horrible
town cries of murder, blandly an
nounccd it,
"In case you might hear it accidental
ly, my lord, ~ he said, II came to tell
you that there has been shocking oc-
currence in the place. The person whom
they call the wizard here has been found
dead, stranglcd as LIZ sat at table in his
chair The daughter r''-Coleman looked
Significantly across to the motionless
fgure-"is not yet aware Of tho occur
renee.
"And, pray, how came you to know
it?' inquired his master sharply and
feeling keenly the extreme inconsider-
ateness of Providence in directing the
spirit of murder to this rural spot,
which he had selected on account of its
apparent retirement from all human ex-
citemcnts, whether of joy or woe.
II WAS passing tho very door, my
lord, when woman rushed out l un-
do1stood she was charwoman who had
forgotten something and went back
IL, "A ~,
saw the body and oame at once to tell
you.
And who is to tell her." said his
master, pointing to the girl. "No; stop"
he cried as the man, with all tho in
stincts Of his class, was moving eagerly
toward her "I'll tell her myself, y and
up he got, to Coleman's unmitigated
amazement.
The girl heard steps at hand and
looked up to sec q kind, stocky little
man standing opposite her and raising
his hat.
Pardon my intrusion" he said,
then paused. II have bad news for
you" he went on gently, firmly. Your
father is dead. ~
words, her arms fell to her sides; then,
like wild thing, she leaped up, as if
in the release of an awful burden she
would spring clean away from its very
memory aud leave earth far behind her.
"Freo!' sho cried 80 my God,
free"
Mamie and Will came running, peo-
10 tO down
from the cottage on the hillside to the
sleepy town the news had trickled, and
Oh tho blazing shore beside that ocean
to which the heart Of men leaps in
stinctively, as symboling a glorious
freedom, stood that white creature
looking upward and with almost fatu-
Gus exultation shouting out, "Freo "
ooh, father" cried Mamie piteous-
ly, "let us take her home"
And there they took her. Not up the
climbing stair planted with fuchsia that
led to the moor and ran past the bare
cottage where the wizard still sat at his
table, his brain frozen forever in its
last thought, good or evil, but to the
rich mans house where all the worst
ills Of life are blunted and turned aside
by the sword of wealth.
But Will Cassilis followed gloomily
and apart. This was Nannie's thresh-
old, Nannies home, and instinct gave
him Il sure, clear warning that in ad-
mitting this unknown woman to his
house Lord Straubenzee was making a
terrible mistake.
CHAPTER III.
1t was not so long ago that the vicar
Of Chudloish Salterton on saints days