Evening journal., 1898-04-11
a REAL ROMANCE.
The Maid Who Remained True 20 Her
Lost Lover.


Truth is stranger than fiction" Who
can dispute Il. old as is the saying9
Fiction may clothe its creations in all
the glamour of burning words, and
skillfully play upon the interest with |
startling and dramatic situations and |
climaxes, but the daily records of hu- !
man events tell in simple language |
stories as singular, strange and tender
as any ever told by tho most vivid por-
trayers of romance.
Real life seems to most Of us hum
drum and commonplace. We turn from
II to seek in novels the spice of interest,
unheeding the.fact that the newspapers
lying each morning on our breakfast
tables TEEN with all that is wonderful
and even weird, glad and sorrowfuL
noble and ignoble, in human history.
Scarcely is there a column that does not
tell a tale of some one of life's varied
phases, exceeding in all that truth ex-
cells fiction the interest that appertains
to tales evolved from mere imagination.
The other day the wires flashed from
MASSACHUSETTS town the news of the
death of woman who had passed the
ninetieth milestone in the journey OF
life. She had lived unknown to the
great world around her, almost un-
known TO the generations that had
come and gone beside her. She was
only very old woman, and she died.
That WIS her history, and yet the chron-
| icle of It's closing revealed a romance
as sweet, as sad, as pure and as tender
as any that Balzao or Dickens ever told.
When her years were only 30, a time
so long ago that IL fills the Scriptural
| span OF life, love was hers. And she
loved a sailor, one of thosesturdy sons
/ of New England who in the earlier days
went "down to the sea In ships" and
made Salem. Gloucester, New Bedford
and Marblehead famous. The time OF
parting came, with tears on one side,
comfortings on the other, promises on
both. He would como baolo to her, for
when did sailor ever tempt the oceans
perils uncheered by the hope that its
treacherous waves would at least keep
faith with him? She would place in
her window, every evening until his
return, a lighted candle, to greet and
guide him should his homeward Jour
ney end at night, They parted, and that
night the candle cleaned as beacon IN
her window.
Days and months passed, how slowly,
how anxiously only those know who
have watched and waited for them they
love. Loneliness was comforted by
hope that frightened into joyous ex-
pectation, only 10 be darkened into de-
spair. For he never returned From
over the murmuring billows no word
OF him was waited Ship and sailors
vanished into that shoreles sea whence
no echo ever comes. And hisname was
inscribed at homo on the records Of
those dead and gone.
There was ono who never gaye him up
That Raa the girl who had his love and
promise, as he had hers In all the
, medicines Of mortal comfort there was
but ona for her, and that was the hope
. that defes knowledge. The candle il
the window, Ike that hope in her heart
was never extinguished- Night aftei
, night 1t was Lighted, and burned as (
beacon untll tho ligh4 of her own lif
hickered and went out forever. Wha
pen, unless dipped in tears, can tell tn
story of those 10 years OF waiting
Family and friends passed away, you'll
n and comeliDess disappeared, chilling
e age bowed her frame, but her heart wa
( as young IA when in llfe's morning
she had given IL at loves promptings
Children were born, grew to manhood
: and maidenhood, were married and die,
. around this lonely watcher, and sh4
. saw loves drama and llfes TRACED,
. played ON every side, and amid it all
a stranger to everything but the past
she was faithful TO the lover who hal
sailed away.
Surely, that which we call life woul
}. be OF all things the most miserable I
there were not beyond its earthly con
= fines a land where those who have love
and suffered separation here shall NEE
j. again. "And there shall be no nigh
there; and they need no candle."-
" Pittsburgh Times