Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1897-05-29

INV PoS OA ni0uAhAh5 VIZ
year of her marriage and never took
it off again. They say she slept in
her Grape veil.
Her children were all born black
in the face and crying, and they
cried the greater part Of their child
hood.
The boys got ashamed Of it after
awhile, for their English blood was
strong, but the girls never dill, and
ought to have lived in a land of
droughts. Their tears would have
fortified desert.
AS it was, there was rain a-plenty
and to spare, and the general kept
out of their way, gave them umbrel-
las and handkerchiefs for birthday
gifts, and rejoiced greatly when they
cried over him at their weddings for
the last time as he thought.
But some of them drowned their
husbands in Gears and came home
again damper than ever, and no one
but the second wife could have stood
them.
She laughed, ordered more fires,
brighter lights, opened the windows
and filled the house with flowers and
gay company.
She called the eldest Niobe to her
face and spoke of them collectively
as the weeping willows, for they
were tall and liked to be thought
willowy.
They cried so much over their lit
tie half brother that the boy fairly
detested them and ran away from
the sight of them.
He grew up strong like his father
and beautiful like his mother, ver-
liable enfant de Pamour, but when
he was 10 and the general was 10,
the fine, handsome old gentleman
died suddenly.
The mistress was but 80, just the
age of the youngest stepdaughter,
and she sat in the drawing room
when the will was read with such a
look on her face that Guelph would
have dared to cry. The boy sat be-
side her, the very print and copy Of
his father, with his little aquiline
nose, his bright blue eyes, and his
fathers own trick of holding up his
chin and stiffening his spine when
he desired to see clearly.
Now, the general had been good
to his children. He bad given gen.
erously to his sons and he had help
ed them in business. He always
gave marriage portions to his daugh
tiers.
They all came to hear the reading
of the will--the women shrouded il
Grape, with red eyes and noses. The
mistress sat in the gown the genera
had loved her the most in, and ev
eryhndy stared at it and her beauti
full grief-stricken face.
The will stated she should hole
the old Chevalier place for her son
If she survived him, it should bt
hers absolutely, to leave as she pleas
ed.
There should be no division unit
the last son was Of age. Then came
requests to relatives and servants
and that was all.
The stepchidren were furiously
angry. One would have though
them On the verge of starvation
"Wait IL years !" they cried. "Wai
until that precious brat is of age
And his mother, with everything il
her hands and responsible to no one
1t is not to be endured !"
And so On, worse and worse.
The mistress looked from one t.
another.
81 will not tell you to leave my
house," she said, in a voice boil
sweet and frozen, "or remind you O
the home you have always had here
You now have homes of your OWL
and must live in them, as I shal
live in mine. As long as you arr
in my house you must conduct your
selves as your fathers children
should. Your quarrels and crue
speeches insult his memory.
They took fight like so many
blackbirds, but the mistress was 81
good natured they few back at in
teryals, and every now and then thu
boy was permitted to visit them
He went with pockets full of gol(
and returned q total bankrupt. II,
gave, and they took, with boil
hands.
About year after the general
death the boy came home from
visit to his eldest brother, Robert
who lived in the city. he had beef
at home for day, perhaps, when b
was taken i'll.
His illness puzzled the countr,
physician, and q city colleague wa
sent for.
But the boy died.
His mother, looking at his deat
body, spoke out her thoughts Al,
has been poisoned. His brother ha
poisoned him.
And she called the eldest son Gait
and Robert the Devil to his dyin:
day.
The speech went abroad like