Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1910-01-13

| Gle / wanted as l TOOK you TO De, ne
observed, as he banged the drawer to.
| But some sort of morbid fascination
about the mirror caused him to take
1t often from the drawer. He came
to look upon 1t with loathing, and each
time that uncouth face peered back
at him he felt creepy sensations of
alternate warmth and chill; yet Sc
strong was the spell it cast over his
better senses that he was unable to
keep his mind from it.
When her birthday came, Caverley
F., took her the hourglass and made no
mention nf the mirror. Indeed. he
spoke Of 1t to no one. for he felt an
Intense disgust al his own actions
regarding IL. Yet every night he
brought il out and turned it about UNI
til the face he had come to hate stared
back at him. Then, with a curse, he
would throw it. into the drawer and
paced the room until he was tired out.
In time he discovered that the mir
ror must be held in a certain position
for the face to appear. Otherwise
1t gave normal reflections. His dis
covery gave him a certain courage.
1t took away some of the weirdness
of the thing, and suggested the pro-
sale course of inquiring into the origin
of the curio.
He sought the manager of the
auction room, who, with smile and
bow, professed entire ignorance of the
source whence the mirror had come.
Caverley, taking out a ten-dollar
note. clipped it in two with his pocket
scissors, and handed onehalf to the
auctioneer
This half is now useless to me-"
he said, but it will be worth ten dol
lars to you when you discover who
sold you the mirror
Some weeks passed and Caverley
studied the mirror in practical way
He noted that it was of unusual thick
ness. and this aroused his suspicious
'I'll take it to pieces, said he, and
this he proceeded to do. 1t took CON
siderable time and patience to work
the back loose without damaging the
glass; but, by dint of perseverance he
managed it. Back of the glass, he
found a shallow metal pan. He at
tackled this, and in few minutes had
separated it from the mirror proper
The pan removed, the whole matter
was plain. Set slantwise beneath the
beveling on the right hand side was
an ambrotype of the face he knew so
we'll The picture extended perhaps
a third of the distance across the mir
ror, and was covered with a thick
plate Of glass, so that looking square
ly into the mirror reflection was nor
NAL, but by sloping it to the right
until the ambrotype was horizontal,
the face with the scars appeared.
Caverley took the ambrotype to the
light, and stood looking at it for some
time
whoever you are said he, you're
not an attractive chap; but I'd double
that ten-dollar note to find out about
YOU"
The matter was rapidly slipping
from his mind when one day the
manager of the auction-room called on
him and brought with him an elderly
gentleman, whom Caverley judged
rightly to be lawyer
THAT mirror" the elderly gentle
man said, when the matter on which
they had called was broached, was
the property of a client of mine, a
Miss Damon. 1t was Sold after her
death, with a lot of other personal
property not disposed of in her will
There's a queer story about it, but |
don't know that | can tell it correctly,
for it was told to me in fragments
whenever my client cared to mention
the subject. which, | can assure you,
sir, was seldom indeed AS we'll as
can piece these bits together it was
something like this:
MANY years ago her family lived
in the South, and there she met a
young physician, who became greatly
attached to her. 1t seems an epidemic
broke out, and the doctor risked his
professional reputation in getting the
Damons away, and through the quar-
antine' which had been established.
He remained there, and eventually was
struck down WIN tne disease, winch
left him with number of scars. Upon
his recovery, he wrote Miss Damon
telling her of this, and she replied
in letter filled with expressions of
deepest sympathy; scars Of the skin,
she wrote, could not mar the soul, and
bade him come to her, but somehow,
the letter miscarried, and he never re-
ceived 1t. He waited for the answer
through several months, and then
wrote her saying he was going abroad
to bury himself somewhere on the
Continent. She was right, he said,
to consider him dead. He sent the
mirror at the same time. There
wasn't much to tell. and fear have
hardly done 1t justice" the lawyer
concluded.