Waterbury Democrat., 1901-06-27
RIGHT IN THE END.
By Hon. H. W. CBuck] Hinrichsen. 1; t%s4%s+%sss%+s%+4++*%&4s
 Copyright, 1901, by Authors syndicate.)


 Wl reached the age of 39 without ever having been able to truthfully claim sweetheart. She was not ugly, nor was she ill-tempered. She tried to make herself agreeable to men, and would, no doubt, have made a good wife, but the men somehow passed her by.
 Perhaps her indifference to her own good qualities and her attempts to shine in fields where she was weak gave them an erroneous idea of her true worth. Perhaps an appearance of insincerity and a too evident desire for attention may have had something to do with her exclusiyeness. But whatever the cause, she saw her girl friends, one after the other, ,wooed, won and welded, until she alone of all her old associates remained a spin ster.
 While she was anxious to marry, she was yet more anxious to have the peo- pie in her world believe that her single state was due to her own wishes and not to lack of opportunities. ~@
 She was a seamstress in the village of Towers, and in her visits from house to house among her patrons she threw out hints of mysterious affairs of the heart which made the thoughts of mat rimony unpleasant to her.
 She had gone to sew for a week at the house of Mrs Logan, in the neighbor- ing village of Parsons. She was but slightly acquainted with Mrs. Logan and her daughter Julia, and she rather enjoyed the prospect of giving them the impression in regard to herself that shs Esnally tried to craake.
 In the village of Towers and we'll known to Miss Scroggs lived Philip Strong, young man of high character and sterling worth. He had enlisted in the Spanish war and was at that time with his regiment in Cuba He was engaged to be married to Julia Logan, but the engagement was secret be- tween them. Indeed the people of his own village knew nothing of their ac- quaintance- His strongest rival, MT. Green, of Parsons, unaware of the en- gagement, continued to pay his ad- dresses to Julia, though without en- couragement, and therefore when Miss Scroggs found herself engaged in preparing certain wedding gar 1 ments for Miss Logan she believed that Mir. Green was to be the happy man.
 Shafter's army was before Santiago. The surrender of that city was daily expected, when one day the papers contained this item of news:
 Lieut. Philip Strong, of the Ninety eighth Wisconsin, was killed this morning from an ambush which he had been sent to reconnoiter. The de- ceased was a resident of Tower, Wis.,
 Miss Scroggs was the first of Mrs. Iogan's household to read the paper. She was shocked by the news, for she knew Strong well. Her sorrow, how ever, did not prevent her from re- solve to turn his death to account after her own peculiar method.
 She waited till she heard Mrs. Logan enter. Then she screamed and threw herself on the floor and pretended to faint. This brought other members of the family to the scene, and in the work of restoring her to consciousness the newspaper was not noticed.
 Brought to her senses, she called att tention to the paragraph and ex- plained that her heart was broken by the horrible death of Lieut.. Strong, her betrothed.
 Julia read the paragraph, but did not faint She retired to her own room to nurse her grief. There her mother fo1nd her and tod her of the cause of Miss Scroggs' sorrow. Julia was sur prised and indignant.
 '.It cannot be possible" she declared, and she proceeded to interview Miss Seroggs-
 That, lady was making the most of \ the situation and lay on her bed weep ing when Julia entered to console her, as Miss Scroggs supposed.
 Jealous as she was, distracted by the death of her lover, and torn by the sus- pieion that he was false-to her, Julia could not but feel pity for the grief of the woman who lay sobbing before her.
 My dear Miss Scroggs," she said, sympathetically, ''I am so sorry for you," and she put her arms around her.
 Miss Scroggs laid her head on Julia's bosom and sobbed.