The Forrest City times., 1900-01-26
Miss ThOrne'S Will
[ AwYER NoRTHBROoKE had ius-

AW1 Ek NORTHBROOkE had just
 driven away from Glenthorne, and
 Elizabeth Everill stood still moment on the broad terrace, and then, with a sigh, turned and entered the house. Only that day her aunt, Miss Matilda Thorne, had been buried, and MT. Northbrooke had come down from Lon don to read the dead woman's will. It was simple enough, and those who had known Miss Thorne intimately hardly wondered at it's wording:
 ITO my niece, Elizabeth Everill, pro- vided she marry a man of title, I will and bequeath all my worldly posses sions."
 And if do not marry?" Miss Ever III had asked.
 You retain your inheritance" the lawyer answered, with a smile. Miss Thorne drew up the win herself, and it is deficient on that point"
 Elizabeth's mother, Miss Thorne's sister, had run off with Paul Everill, the organist of the church, before she was IS. Her father had forbidden her name to be mentioned in his hearing, and at his death Glenthorne had passed to Matilda internationally. She had held no communication with the married sister till she read in Q newspaper of the death of Paul Ever i'll, and then she had paid one visit to the dismal London lodging where Mrs. Eyerill lay dying. There had never been much love between the sisters, but Miss Thorne was willing to take her sisters daughter under her care. So, when the organist's wife was laid beside him, their only daughter had been brought to her mothers home Masters and governesses had been em- ployed to perfect her education, and her aunt had never wearied of instill- ing love of wealth and power and a horror Of poverty into the girls mind. That her words had not fallen on bar fen ground she would have under stood could she have known her niece's thoughts that evening.
 She was thinking of scene that had taken place there just five years before.
 Some old paintings had been sadly Tn neec of the attention that only a skillful hand could give, and Miss Thorie had heard Ralph Crosby favor ably spoken of, and had asked him to do the work. Elizabeth had been much in the long portrait gallery while Ralph Crosby talked and paint ed, and at length he had forgotten that ba Iy ct -{ and she the niece of the wealthiest woman in the county and had spoken his love. Miss Everill could still re- member the naughty stare and mock ing smile of her aunt when she spoke of her love for Ralph.
 Love! Your mother loved Paul Everill, suppose, and you know some thing of her life. But make your own choice. Marry this young man if you will, but not one farthing of mine will be yours."
 And the girl had lain awake till day break thinking of the sordid sur sonndings amid which her childhood mad been passed, and of the poverty for which she had such a horror, till at last she was resolved to answer No" to her lovers pleading.
 She winced even now as she re- called the grief that struggled with contemptuous pity for her reasoning when she told him the next day that she could not be poor mans wife, and remembered the few bitter words that fell from his lips as he turned away without seeming to see her out stretched hand. In the last few days she had thought once or twice, in a vague way, that if Glenthorne should chance to be hers she would find a way of letting him know that she