Connecticut western news., 1910-02-10

years had passed during which I had kept apart from Fife and Fife had kept apart from me. But how could l know whether she was unchanged? couldn't. Suppose I wrote her to find out and received no reply. I wouldn't know whether my letter had fallen into her mothers hands or whether Fife had received it and did not care to renew our past relations.
 And here comes in the second val entine. l was offered my new position the 1st of January, and in six weeks St Valentines day came round. 1 sent Ellie, who was now twenty-two years old. valentine. 1 was aware that the custom had even at that day fallen largely into the hands of chil- dren. l didn't intend to declare my love in verses that had now come to seem cheap to me. I used the valen- tine as q starter for a clandestine cor respondence. I wrote a message on it in lemon juice then indited in a dis guised hand this coupIet:
 If to know me you aspire
 Read my name before the fire.
 You see letters written in lemon juice, though invisible before, when heated come out a brown color. Eff fife would apply the necessary heat. l only feared that sine would throw the valentine ill the Yastebasket with out reading the couplet.
 That all turned out right was ap- parent in a letter I received from my valentine, for which I had given her an address. Fife was delighted at my success and said that she was very proud of me. She added. however, that, so far as obtaining her mothers consent to our marriage or even an en- Sagement was concerned, it would be more difficult than ever. Her mothers figures for the fortune Efie's husband should possess were rising every day.
 Fife and I after this continued to correspond clandestinely, she not knowing exactly what to do. She loved her mother, and she loved me. She had yielded to her mothers wish es so long as I was unable to support her, and, now that was in a position to do so, she felt that something was due both to me and to herself. Mat ters were brought to a crisis by Mrs. Winston discovering our correspond ence. A letter Fife had written. me fell into her mothers hands.
 It.seems that Mrs. Winston had been on the watch for such a procedure and could not imagine how my first letter could have got into the house without her knowing it. Fife declined to en- tighten her. That made the old lady very angry, and there was great com motion in the Winston family. Of course our correspondence was stop ped. Fife was forbidden to write to or receive letters from me under pain of being run off to Europe. In addi- tion to the command Mrs. Winston set spies upon Fife, and she dared not post me a single note.
 Matters went on in this way for nearly a year. One day letter came to the Winston house that excited Elf fie's suspicious. It was now her turn to pry The letter bore the business stamp of an agent of a steamship con- pany. Fife steamed the envelope, opened it and read that her mother had engaged passage for two for Ge- noa, the vessel to sail on the 14th of February, or in about week.
 Here was q revelation. Something must be done. Something was done. And this is the way 1t was done.
 Fife a week before St. Valentines day went out and bought a supply of valentines for the children. The same evening she addressed a number of them, her mother asking why she was sending them so early, and she reply ing that they were going to distant places. She addressed and stamped them, managing to retain one, which she addressed to me. This she gave, with the others, to a maid to post, who mailed them without looking at the addresses.
 This was the third and last valen- tine. I received it and read that Fife was ready to walk away with me to church before the sailing of the vessel that was to take her to foreign parts. She appointed a place of meeting and an hour. Indeed, she arranged every thing to my satisfaction.
 
 steamer was to leave at 1 D. m. on Feb. IA, and the appointment made by Fife to meet me was at dawn the same morning. Before any one in the house was awake she was up and dressed and stealing downstairs. Then she went out by a rear door. l was at the corner with a carriage, and when I saw her scudding toward me I opened the carriage door, we got in and were driven away.
 I had arranged my part of the elope- ment and engaged a clergyman to be up and ready to perform a wedding ceremony when the cocks were crow ing. We found him ready, and in few minutes knot had been tied that Mrs. Winston could not unloose. From the parsons we drove back to tho house. Fife let us in with a night key, and we waited till her mother came downstairs to breakfast. Since she was to sail that day she was up early, and when she entered the room nd cittinp fo-