The Opelousas courier., 1901-05-25

being superior to a girl Of eighteen, she
reasoned, at twenty-five there was no
intellectual improvement,@and eigh-
teens freshness and Innocence had
fed, and taken Its chain with it.
II have been sleeping" she said to
herself. "instead Of growing wiser and
better all these sever years, and i'm.
proving in appearance and conversa-
ton, until my girlhood was overshad-
owed by the superiority Of my WON"
anhood, I stand to-day in the same
tracks which I stood in seven years
ago, but the bloom and the beauty Of
those days have vanished forever
away. Enoch Chapel has grown away
from me; I have remained in the same
tracks, and he has travelled on"
1t Is the sad lot Of a woman. Taught
to depend on man for her support and
happiness, she waits and watches, and
Her natural powers Of self-reliance
and self-dependence lie dormant, until
she is awakened by some great dis
appointment, and finds there is no man
who will care for and protect her, and,
laboring under the disadvantages Of
wrong teaching and inexperience, she
must after all care for herself and
make her own way in the world.
For nearly a week Susan Weathers-
field was pale and quiet, but her mind
was more active than ever it had been
before, and at last she laid before her
good father and mother her plan for
the future; and the good old people
saw something in the white face which
told them remonstrance was useless,
and so she babe them good-by one
bright afternoon 0 on after. and start.
ed for the city of New York.
To tell Of Susan .Weathersfield's
trials and hardships in the city; her
temptations, her mistakes, her battle
with prejudice, and the disadvantages
under which she labored on account
of ignorance and wrong teaching,
would fill O closely-written volume,
and would. after all, be only a repeti.
ton Of the many other women who
have fought their own way upward,
wholly dependent upon themselves.
She banished from her heart the old
hope of being a happy wife and the
light Of a pleasant home. Such dreams
fingered no longer to lessen her energy
and her self-reliance, and her face
was sternly and steadily set toward
the accumulation of a fortune and the
making Of a home for herself.
Day after day and year after year
she worked, patiently and untiringly,
first as a nurse-maid, then as clerk in
q small fancy store, where her
strength of character and her ability
as saleswoman were appreciated, and
her fortune thenceforward began to
look brighter, and hope whispered
words Of encouragement. Slowly, but
surely, she rose step by step until she
had become head saleswoman in q
establishment on Broadway; and
there is no doubt that many Of my |
readers In their shopping excursions |
often seen her, and thought her |
a handsome and thoroughbred lady, |
and had no suspicion that she once
worked on a farm, making butter and
and going to market in an old
wagon, wearing ar old-fashloned bon |
net, without a thought Of ever doing
other work than that of farmers wives |
and daughters. She Is ever respectful, |
pleasing and patient to all, but to
young ladies from the country she is
particularly attentive and kind, and
invariably, after q call from one of
them, she looks thoughtful, and her
mind seems distracted for a few mo-
nents, but it soon passes away, and
is the same genteel and thoughtful
lady as before.
Her parents are dead, and she often
thinks of going back to the old home
ind taking with her some poor, moth
erless child to educate and real as her
own, for she is growing tired Of the
city, and longs for the pure air which
breathed in her childhood; but 1t
Is more probable that she will marry
her rich employer, for the old love
which she once felt for Enoch Chapel
s long ago forgotten. Whom first we
you know, 1--WE seldom wed.
Circumstances rule us all."-New York