Connecticut western news., 1899-11-23

gray to nt..

She sang about the big empty house i; own eye in one of the many great mir TOTS Once she took off the little white crape cap and threw it into the air. 1t was very bad taste on her part, but she was so happy that she had got beyond refinement.
 So at the end of six months she book ed her passage in the Kandahar to go out to him.
 She said goodby to all her friends She smiled vaguely and irritatingly at their slightly stiff congratulations, and their half yelled hints as to the some what indecent haste displayed, when Percy's body was hardly cold in the tomb According to circumstances some bodies retain an unnatural warmth for an extraordinary space of time). Mary did not care, and that Is the worst of woman. She loves one man and kicks the rest of the world out of the door, The man forgets-the world remembers. That is the worst of man and of the world
 She had spent four -andtwenty years in sitting by the weary wayside watch ing for happiness to come along the road. And now happiness had hove in sight, in distant cloud of glory, and she straightway arose to meet it, with out any mock modest delay. What did it matterP She was going away from them all for good.
 A week before she sailed she received a letter from Jack Collingwood. It was longer than the last. It beat about the bush good deal, but it left no doubt as to its ultimate intention.
 When fate makes mistake, it is apt to be spiteful It lies low and watches it's pportunity-the opportunity for bringing its victim to grief-and then it is itself again.
 Fate made Mary's lover unfaithful to her, and the letter was to break it to her as gently as possible that he had married another woman-in haste, it seemed, lest she should come out and stop him-and that there was no neces- sity for her to go out to Calcutta.
 Mary Charrington suffered torture for that one week. At the end of it
  and realized that, if she had nowhere to go, she had at the same time no- where to stay-nowhere in the world.
 And out of the world-her dead hus- band would be waiting for her. The passage was taken on the Kandahar. That was the detail which proved her salvation. A first class passage to India costs money. It would be a pity to waste it. There again was the woman practical through the numbness of an appalling calamity, the loss of every thing she valued. So the Kandahar sailed at the end of the week. and the name of Mrs. Percy Charrington figured in the passengers list.
 Fate sometimes repents and makes what amends it can. It made honorable amend to her. The third man in her life crossed her path and linked his lines with hers on board the Kandahar on the voyage out. He fell in love with her at once-love that came so soon as to run a neck and neck race with pity.
 His name was Edgar Goring, and he was man of action, not speech, and told her that he loved her and meant to marry her.
 She laughed for several minutes more than was decorous or suitable when he told her this, but he understood. Then she grew quieter and gave him the his tory of the last three yeals simply and truthfully.
 ''I am quite without hope, and I don't see there is anything left to me, MT. Goring," she said. "You are more than good but am an old woman. I have got through the best of my life. I cannot marry you feeling as I do. ;"
 ''Oh, yes, you can, said Edgar Cor ing
 "very we'll" she said, giving in from sheer inability to resisO. "You must take the risk, and you have got a very, very bad bargain. !"
 She gave him limp, nerveless hand and looked into his resolute eyes with a watery little smile.
 He kissed the hand, and then he kiss ed her.
 ''I take the risk, he said. 'I mean to marry you and make you forget I mean to make you love me-.
 He did all three things.
 And this is true story, so will not apologize for its glaring improbabilities.
 Her husband is younger and nicer looking and richer than Percy Charring- ton, more charming and more success ful than Jack Collingwood, and she loves him far better and knows it.
 A woman is anointed with the oil of gladness above her fellows when fate bestows upon her full love and full CT knowledge of what that love can be to her, bringing her, as it brought Mary Goring, through fire and water into the ultimate haven of 8 wealthy place Sketch.