Waterbury Democrat., 1901-06-06

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 And so it happened that before the graduating class were fairly out of ca det uniform and into their first "cits'' 8 messenger i'll the shape of the official orderly of the co1nnandant of cadets came to Erie Langdon to invite" his presence at the quarters of that high official, and there he was presented anew to the distinguished senator to whom Ee, in company with his class mates, had already made the orthodox and conventional homage required Of the graduating cadet to the board of visitors, and now the senator, all suavi- ty, led forward an extremely pretty and viyacious damsel. MT. LanGdon,' said he, "this young lady has fallen in love with the corps in general and your --horsemanship in particular, and I know you will be delighted to recipro- cate"
 It was m odd moment for Langdon. He would have been at loss to know what to do or say had not the girl her self, with merry words and laughter. relieved the situation of it's embarrass- Elent.
 
 frequently that summer. They parted in the fall, when he went to his regi- nsent, he utterly infatuated, she half. delighted, half regretful. She couldn't think Of marrying in the army, she said. She admired it and him of all things, but that was all. Twice in that first year he managed to get leave and to go to her and plead again. He ilad some little money beyond his pay. He felt that he could support her in comfort, but he little dreamed of the scope of her desires. He was kept blind to the fact that she had hopes and ambitions far beyond his. Then one day the sudden death of q senator shocked the community, and Langdon, reading the news, never ina gined the influence it was to have on his life. His letter of coincidence to her brought an answer that was more than kind, Their marriage was sudden, but i'm mensely "swell.'' She came with him to the regiment few months, "stun- ning' everybody by the elegance of her toilet and the extrayagance of her ideas. Then she declared she could not bear garrison life and pined for Wash ington. She got him a detail on staff duty, and he would not go. His place, he said, for a few years at least must be with the regiment. She went with out him, and presently he was bonn barded with bills the payment of which swamped him-took his last cent. It mattered little she said. Senator Snotts' only sister, his elder by several years, was to leave her every penny, and indeed in the hard times for him that followed more than once that he knew of ard more than twice that he knew not of that sorely tried maiden came to his rescue with checks of star ting size Then there came rumors that the lovely if volatile Mrs. Lang don was flirting desperately at the cap ital, and one of the very best young eduty" officers in the regiment was be- ginning to look haggard and shabby. She got him to sign notes far beyond his pay to meet her needs, promising that Cousin Spotts" would meet the netes., They began to- fall due just as that amiable lady was taken Ito ohef grave, and then the will was contested, the legal heirs won, and Mrs. Langdon had to begin parting with jewelry, not to meet these notes, but her own cray ings. Then came more bills, more debts, morphine.
 Such were three years of Erie Lang don's married life. The next and last was the worst Striving all the time to stick to his duty and keep up ap- pearances, he was wearing himself out in tLe vain hope that his military rec ord for efficiency might offset the terri bIe stigma of these pressing debts. Now the creditors were becoming i'm portunate and raining their complaints upon his colonel and the war depart ment. No matter how or by whom contracted, the debts were held to be lis, that he was accountable for all By the time he was 27 and finishing his fourth year of service with the regi- nent Eric Langdon looked like the pa triarch of the sIbalterns, with his lining face and sad dark eyes, and when during the next year the news came that his wretched heipmate-saye the mark-had brcathed her last in a retreat" everybody said, Blessed re lief"
 And yet, poor lad, he mourned her and went and wept over her grave.
 Then he came lack to the regiment to face curious glances and those thou sands of debt. Among the junior off cers there were T few brave boys like Woodrow and Rodney May who strove to cheer c9d sustain him. But Tor lance. who had struck it rich'' at Fer tress Monroe and married an 1nane young woman of much wealth, was in- tolerant of a fellow at his wits end for money, and there was captain in the garrison who developed into one of Langdons prosecutors. This was Felix Nathan. Nobody in 1870 could have traced Nathan's anteceGents. He shun- ned the topic himself and left to others the comforting theory that they were in some way connected with the pawn shop. He had been commissioned in the infantry at the instance of the Hon. MT. Steinmeyer, who represented in congress wealthy if inconspicuous district i'll New York. He found few months so5ourn in a fighting regiment on tfe far frontier so utterly to his dis taste-the mere mention of Indians would turn him livid long years after