Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1899-01-26
THE MAD GODS.
What would the mad gods do
For hate with me, ! wonder?
Or what for love with youf

assistance the best run of the season.
People shook their heads and remark
ed that young men from the grass coun-
ties who will try to fly the Essex fences
can only expect broken necks as mat
ter of course A fence that begins with
a small ditch and soft take off. con-
tinues with big built up bank crown
ed by stout staked hazel hedge and is
concluded by a nine foot drop into a
chasm like ready made grave on the
far side is not the place to fly, as any
| fool should have known and all Essex
people do know.
So Percy Charrington went home on
a hurdle-all of him that the startled
soul left behind when it set forth on its
separate journey from the bottom of
that pitiless ditch. and Mrs. Charring-
ton, five days later, sat in her widow 8
weeds in the lonely library and gazed
across the sodden. gray garden with
eyes that looked and saw not.
She had been prisoner and now the
shackles had fallen, and behold. she was
free!
Two hours before the heavy Essex
clay fell dead and solemnly upon her
husbands coffin; two hours ago she
turned her face from the past and faced
the future-the future that five days
back had never existed for her. Where
fore she sat in her library and was
calmly. steadfastly glad.
In having been wretched for three
years she was spared the great misery
she should rightly have felt at her lone
liness At moments such as these it is
permitted one to be thankful that all
women do not love their husbands.
Mary Charrington was small wom-
an, with slight figure, pale face a
little too long for it's width, big gray
eyes and mass of old fashioned nut
brown hair. She was four and twenty,
and she had never been sincerely happy
in the whole of her life.
Who are we to cast stone at her
when we realize that she came nearer
to happiness on the day of her hus-
bands funeral than ever before?
1t is sinful to wish man dead, sin
full to be glad when he dies, but when
that mans person has constituted a
barrier between oneself and all pleasure
in life if it be sinful to rejoice at that
barriers removing, then sin such re,
ioicing must be, and there's an end OF
it!
She had married him three years be,
fore for diversity of reasons. not fol
the only one She put all thought Of
that aside. She said Eyes" to Mr..
Charrington because he was young anc
good looking and loved her and pro
posed to her and because she was lonely
and poor and tired of all her surround
ings and wanted strong arm between
her and the world Women marry fol
that last reason much oftener than they
have any idea of.
OF course directly she was married
she met the man she was to love. ant
forthwith loved him, and suffered a
only these little, pale faced. gray eye(
women can. because they have NJ
strength to rise superior to their love
nor pride of passion ever to contemplate
cutting the Gordian marriage Knot
The mans name was Jack Collingwood
and he was barrister, who, being
brave man. ran away and went off t.
try his luck at the Calcutta bar.
Fate was kind and let him succeed
Fate wanted to keep him away from
Mrs Charrington, and then one da,
{ it forgot and let Percy come to IRENE
diable grief out hunting after which
| having committed blunder, it WASHED
it's hands of the whole affair and SAID
,, "What must be shall BEL
Fate is fatalist.
She wrote to her lover; she told hin
she was free. 1t was not long letter
but the whole of her life and her low
and her hopes of heaven went out t.
Calcutta between two pages OF forelg1
paper.
The answer came back-the answe
abe expected and longed and praye'
, for. and Mary Char1ington made he
, nreparations, set her affairs in orde
S and bought her trousseau, walking III
e golden world decked with purple an
t rose and silver-a world all fair to see
that had never before been aught ou
gray to her.
She sang about the big, empty house
she laughed whenever she caught ne
= own eye in one of the many great mn
: rors Once she took off the little whit
n crane cap and thu ew it into the air.
i was very bad taste on her part, but sh
Q was so happy that she had got beyon
refinement.
So at the end of six months she book
ed her passage in the Kandahar to G
out to him.
She said goodby to all her friends
She smiled vaguely and irrltatingly a
! their slightly stiff congratulations. an
e their half yelled hints as to the some
: what indecent haste displayed, whe
i Percy's body was hardly cold i'll tn
e tomb according to circumstance
some bodies retain an unnatural warmt
for an extraordinary space of time).
Mary did not care, and that Is th
worst of woman. She loves one ma
and kicks the rest of the world out
the door. The man forgets-the worl
remembers. That is the worst OF ma
and of the world.
She had spent four and-twenty veal
in sitting by the weary wayside watcl
, ing for happiness to come along I'll
] road. And now happiness had hove
sight, in distant cloud OF glory an
she straightway arose to meet It, witt
out any mock modest delay. What al
it matters She was going away fro
them all for good.