The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1900-12-28

giveness, for | have cherished anger
against you both, especially against
my beloved mother, and l have pru-
posely concealed myself from you. 1
am dying, and | connot come, as l
long to do, to kncel at your feet; but
send my wife, my poor Juliette-
for | married her, dear mother-and
my boy, named John for my fathers
sake; l send them to plead for me.
Receive them, dear parents, for my
sake"
The father read no more, but laying
the letter down, he reverentiy raised
his face and said, in tones of solemn
joy:
"My God, l thank Thee once again
that l am not this day a murderer"
Then he took poor frightened Ju-
liette in his arms and kissed her ten
tenderly, saying:
"Be at rest; my child. You are
safe, and at home for this is the moth
or and this is the father to whom Ar
thur sent you, and Providence itself
guided You to our door-yes, and
opened it in time to save your body
and my soul from destruction. God
be thanked, again and again.
Then followed long explanations
a little confused at first, bnt at last
made clcar-and Arthur Morton's par
cnts recalled the story of his youth and
brilliant promises and remembered.
although they did not say it to the
child who was his widow, the bitter
ness of their anger and disappointment
when lie, just returned from the course
of foreign travel which had completed
his education refused the advantageous
marriage proposed for him, and stated
his resolve to return to Italy and mar
ry an Italian peasant-girl whom he
had there met and loved, and promised
to make his wife.
A bitter quarrel ensued between
parents and child, until at length the
mother, carried away by a temper
whose force and recklessness was the
banc of her better nature, rose and
cursed her son, and dove him forth
from her presence and from his fathers
house, until he should forsake his DISC
bedience and return humbly craving
pardon.
The father overpowered by the ve-
hement will of the wife, whom he
adored- and, truth to tell, little fear
ed-stood silent; and his son-inheri-
tor of his mothers temper as well as
Of her dark beauty, looked from one to
the other, and slowly said:
81 am going; and take God for my
witness that will never return to you
alive"
He was gone; ; and when the next
morning his father silently sought him
up and down the city, he was nowhere
to be seen or heard of nor had any
whisper of news ever hoated back, in
all those four years, to the yearning
hearts whose only life had come to be
remorse, longing, and feverish desire
for some certainty even of death.
By slow degrees, also, an estrange-
ment had grown up between husband
and wife-and this chiefly on the part
of the man, who had almost adored his
beautiful wife until that bitter night
had showed her to him in the charac-
ter Of the cursor and destryer of the
son whose life and prosperity had been
his chielest hope in life. With much
of the spirit of the first man, whose ex-
cuse for sin was, "The woman tempted
me-" this man had come to forgetting
his own share in the quarrel between
son and parents, and to think of his
wife as the sole cause of the separation
which was 50 grievous pain to him
and she: devoured by remorse for her
own sin, hardly felt conscious that she
was made to bear the added weight of
another's transgession, or, if she be-
came sometimes sensible of this injus-
tice, accepted it uncomplainingly, as
part of her just punishment.
And now came the long letter, sup
plcmented by Julicttc's broken explain
ations to tell how the young man, re-
turning and marrying the poor little
peasant, as he had promised, had then
tried to support her, sometimes by
acting as teacher, sometimes by help
ing the artists-who all knew aud lik-
ed Lim-in the more mechanical por-
tions Of their work. and sometimes in
other ways-succecding, with all, not
only in keeping his little family, but
in slowly accumulating a fund which
was to take them all to America and
back; for deep down in the young
husbands heart burned bitter re-
morse of which he never spoke-a ten
der longing for his mothers kiss, his
fathers blcssing-which the caresses
of his fair yoang wife and of his noble
boy could never for moment still.
And at last, when the little hoard
was almost sufficient, the God whom
he had summoned as a witness of his
wild words refused to allow him to re-
tract them, and took him home, indeed,
but not to the earthly home he had