The St. Johns herald., 1897-06-05
THE MAN THAT *
 * MARRIED MARY.

port now that Mary was gone, and yet he saved and screwed at every point, which brought him into disrepute at CheritOn. The char-woman who clean ed his house told thrilling tales of tin box, securely locked, which had its abode under Peters chest of drawers, and into this box the imagination of Cheriton transferred all the savings which Peter so carefully boarded.
 One day the rectOr's eldest son, Jack, now at Oxford, rushed into his fathers study, crying:
 ''I say, dad, what do you think? The man that married Mary has been rob- bed of all his savings"
 The rector pushed up his spectacles and gazed benignly at Jack from un- der them.
 Dear me, dear me, what a sad thingw be murmured. How much money has been stolen?'
 Nobody knows. But the tin box out of his bedroom has gone and the poor man is demented."
 "No wonder" said the kind old rect or.
 ''The thief evidently climbed through the window while Dunn was out, as the door was locked"
 Did he take anything besides the tin box?" asked the rector.
 "NO," answered Jack, flor the very good reason that there was nothing else inside the house worth the car riage. There must be a pretty pot of money in that box, dad; for never q pipe in the whole village bursts with out the man that married Mary being we'll paid for mending 1t, and he Is re- munerated for his pew-opening du- ties, too; and yet he hardly has enough to eat, 1 hear, and there Is nothing in his house worth a half-crown piece. The savings in that old tin box must tot up to pretty sum-"
 Dear me, dear me! It is very sad, Jack, my boy, when the love of money thus takes hold of a man-very sad, indeed"
 'Well, the old boy is punished for 1t now, anyway" said Jack, with the un- tempered justice of the very young and inexperienced, "and I anu glad of it."
 'T'm not" sighed the rector, q SUD- pose punishments do good, but am al- ways sorry when there is a necessity for them. If poor Mary had lived Dunn would never have got into these mean ways; she was such a bright, pretty, superior girl"
 Which remark showed that the dis pensations of providence are wiser after all than the reasoning of the most charitable old rectors.
 Later on In the day Jack Levett caught sight of dark object lying in ditch. He pulled 1t out and found 1t to be tin box, with the lock pried open. In 1t there was nothing but a packet of letters in Mary Dunn's pret- ty old-fashioned writing and some fad cd roses, brown and crisp with age. The former he was too much of a gen tleman to read, but he concluded they were love letters, as they were address ed to Peter Dunn, but as there was no money in the box he conjectured that the thief had taken what was valu- able and thrown the rubbish away. So he took It straight to Dunn, with many condolences.
 'I have found this box of yours in a ditch, Dunn," he said, but I fear all the valuables have been taken out of It."
 Peter seized the box and examined its contents.
 "NO. it's all right, Master Jack" he cried with excitement; fifteen letters and ten roses and not one missing. O, how can I thank you enough, sir, for restoring them to me? l shall never forget your kindness as long as l live"
 Jack looked puzzled. But wasn't there anything else in the box?" he asked.
 "No, sir; this Is all, and it is all I have on earth that Is of any value to me. Fifteen letters that my Mary wrote to me while we were courting, and ten roses that she gave me at diff ferent times. And to think that they are all safe, and not one missing! I shall never cease to bless you, Master Jack, for what you have done for me this day-neyer."
 'I thought there must have been money in the box, you seemed In such q way about It."
 Bless you, sir, I shouldn't have made all that fuss If 1t had only been money. But, you see, these letters are all that I have left of my Mary, and I read them over and over again. She was a rare scholar, my Mary was"
 And so pretty, too." said Jack, kind ly.
 "Ay, Master Jack, she was that; and the sweetest way with her. Why, could tell you the history of each of them ten roses. and where we were standing, and what she said when she gave it to me; only should feel some how as Mary mightn't like 1t. But 1 say her dear words over and over to myself, and never forget them, though it would seem irreverent-like to repeat them to another person, even to one of the quality like yourself"
 Of course, of course" said Jack hastily, feeling queer, uncomfortable lump in his throat; and then they went on to talk of other things. So the man that married Mary was comforted, aud tho hidinO-OIono Of hic co wings remain