New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-05-30
MISS JANET'S FORGIVENESS
A STORY OF MEMORIAL DAY.

beauty which shall presently crown her.
But in Miss Janets heart there had been no
spring for more than thirty years.
She sat beside the open window through which |
fioated the fragrance of flowers and the murmur
Of two young voices in the little porch, and her |
middle aged face was both sad and stern.
Tomorrow would be Decoration Day. The viii |
lage children had been all the afternoon making |
wroaths and bouquets OF the wild flowers for |
whose gathering the had wandered far afield. !
But Miss Janets heart grew harder. softer !
at this thought For the grave which held the
lover of her girlhooi had a flower laid
uTon it; the very place of it unknown to
her. whose grief and whose prayers haunted it
with agony of longing for which time had no
consolation.
All the world had for given and forgotten the
strife OF thirty years ago-except Miss Janet,
Throughout the land the countless flowers wait |
Ing for to-morrows ceremony would be placed as
tonderly the graves Of those who had been |
ernies OF those who had been beloved. With |
in that moonlit porch the girl who dear as
her own child sat beside lover whose father |
had been Confederate officer. and nobody |
among their old neighbors. conservative as are
New-England memories. thought Nancy's love !
disloyal-except Miss Janet
There was nothing to be said against young |
Farquhar; this the common-sense which ran |
thread by thread with faithfuness through her |
nature babe Miss Jaret remember He was
manager of the newly established iron foundry |
In the valley; upright. prosperous and Nancy's
lover from the moment when his dark eyes had |
first behed her. Nancy stanch she was
sweet. She might have sacrificed her happiness
to opposition of principle from the woman
who had mothered her motherless days But Miss
Janet was as just as the grief which had never
grown old permitted her to be. She consented
to NanCy's engagement she tolerated Nancy's
lover. and dumbly she knew that the last CLEAN
OF sunshine had vanished from her gray life
ard |
be shared by a Virginian.
She leaned her tired head against the window
frame. and some words her hearing in
Nancy's clear low tones, which reused her to
intense listening. Yes, she had a right to listen
to the story Of her life's tragedy, told by the
girl who the cherished link between her and
the past.
He was my mothers brother" Nancy said
Cousin Janet engaged to him. She has a
miniature of him, painted just before he went
away TO the war-such handsome boy with
fearless eyes one gresses how bravely they
must have confronted the rifles drawn in line to
take his life"
He was not killed in battle?" Farquhar
asked.
He was shot as a spy" Nancy's voice shook
with an echo Of the passionate resentment that &
had told her the story. He had been wounded I
during a skirmish and left to the of some {
kind people at farmhouse. when soldiers
were forced to retreat. He recovered quickly
Cousin Janet has letter she received many l
months after his death. letter which must have d
broken her heart to eai it is full Of hope and c
Gag erness to be at his post again"
What his Nance" T
Roy Standsh. When he well enough for 2
the journey he started on horseback in civilian E
clothes. The people who had been friendly to f
him insisted that Federal uniform would never
get through the lines-and he dreaded irnprison- :
ment. Two days later he stopped by Con-
federate picket Papers were found in his pock- 90
cts which proved him 10 be "A Union officer No il
heed was paid to his protestations OF innocence u
He was shot at dawn. His last little letter of
farewell sent to Cousin Janet probably bv a
the next flag Of truce-such a brave. brief prayer p
FOR her consolation-and she has never known
where he buried" :
The soft falter of Nancy's voice ceased and
there was silence. II balm could be for Miss "
Janets wounded soul, it that this son of the .
defenders OF the cause which had cost Rows life :,
should find no words when he heard the story l.
u his death. To-
Nancy went presently.