The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1900-03-17
SIX YEARS AGO.

Lawyer Northbrooke had just driv-
en- away from Glenthorne, and Eliza
beth Everill stood still moment on
the broad terrace, and then with a
sigh, turned and entered the house.
On that day her aunt, Miss Matilda
Thorne, had been buried, and Mr..
Northbrooke had come down from,
London to read the dead woman S
will. 1t was simple enough, and
those who had known Miss Thorne
intimately hardly wondered at its
wording:
"To my niece, Elizabeth Everill,
provided she marry man of title, /
will and bequeath all my worldly pos
sessions
"And if l don't marry?" Miss Ev-
eril1 had asked.
"You retain your inheritance" the
lawyer answered with a smile. miss
Thorne drew up the will herself, and
it is deficient on that point +"
Elizabeth's mother, Miss Thorne's S
sister, had run off with Paul Everill,
the organist of the church, before she
was I8. Her father had forbidden
her name to be mentioned in his hear
ing, and at his death Glenthorne had
passed to Matilda Internationally,
She had held no communication with
the married sister till she read in a
newspaper of the death of Paul Ever
i'll, and then she had paid one visit to
the thss sdisuea1l sue1l hhaa hhaaudoppo lodging where
sisters, but Miss Thorne was willing
to take her sisters daughter under
her care. So when the organist's S
wife was laid beside him, their only
daughter had been brought to her
mothers home. Masters and gov
ernesses had been employed to edu-
cate her, and her aunt had never
wearied of instilling a love of wealth
and power and a horror of poverty in
the girls mind. That her words had
not fallen on barren ground she would
have understood could she have
known her niece's thoughts that even
ing.
She was thinking of a scene that
had taken place there just five years
before.
Some old paintings had been sadly
in need of the attention that only a
skillful hand could give, and Miss
Thorne had heard Ralph Crosby fa-
vorably 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 he was only a struggling artist
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, 1 suppose, and you know
something 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
daybreak thinking of the sordid sur
roundings amid which her childhood
had 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 pleadings.
She WINGED even now as she recall
ed the grief that struggled with con-
temptuous pity for her reasoning
when she told him the next day that
she could not be a 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 lov-
ed him still, that she had loved him
always.
"And now-and now," she said to
herself, while the shadows grew deep
ly in the corners of the wide library,
"an insurmountable barrier divides
us" She clasped her hands tightly,
and, with eyes that were dimmed with
tears, gazed into the glowing embers.
"Oh, Aunt Matilda your very kind
ness is but cruelty. wonder where
Ralph is now? Oh, I almost wish 1
were poor girl to-day. And yet, no
Il couldn't bear that p
And the latter reflection was con-
stantly passing through the girls
mind as time wore on. It was very
pleasant to be mistress of the great
house and to have money at COM
mand. Under her rule Glenthorne be-
came a very nice place indeed and
before the year was ended it was
whispered that Lord Arthur Kendall
was very much in love with her.
Elizabeth heard Ralph Crosby's
name mentioned several years later,
when she went to London. He was
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