The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1889-11-06 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

BROTHER BASIL. called Brother Basil. I live old a°2l`l- with =say Oka brothers. We bare .Pur duLicso our payers, our routine. We know nothing of to.l, Mt" world rave that there is Richness and death in it; iba4 there we prisoners, and thus doomed to *seceders. are sent to help these at times. Of the rest—of the happy, the gay, those who dance, those who marry, and re given in snarriage—we know nothing. We ars blind to fair women's faces, or should be. Don't smile. Once no one liked these strange creatures better thee I, once no one was better liked by them. That eas before was Brother Basil. I am five-and-thirty now, and I have lived In this convent ten years. I desire to die here, since I must die. I will write my story down, and leave it behind me u a wanting to others. I will write it down that no one may trust a false, fair face, and false, dark eyes, as I did —eyes like a g.ozelle's. But, oh ! she was beautiful— beautiful as women seldom are—though she was not • lady, and Ives a gentleman. s I was Don Basil then, and I lived with my grayhaired father—a proud, haughty man, and a very rich one—in our handsome house. She was beautiful, as I have said, and I fell in love with her. Nay, why should Brother Basil have any pride? He has abjured it. I will tell you. She was a washer-woman, and no more. She brought home the washed linen once a week in a basket on her head. But when Sunday came, and I saw her crawling the plaza on her way to the cathedral, her mantilla shading her hair, a red rose just behind the ear in those great black waves that glittered as no jet does, • fan in her hand, a glove upon it—. surely," I used to any, " she looks like a lady. Were she rich no one could do more credit to fine dress and jewels ;" and then I said, "I will merry her and make her a lady." Father Basil does not blush for Don Basil then. Perhaps I might have done as rich men often do—wooed the poor girl ant left her like a broken toy when I grew weary. Instead I gave her honest love. I spoke to her. She did not deny me—she said she also loved me. But my father—well, I knew him. I need not have doubted what he would do—how he would feel. The night before my wedding-day he said to me: "Basil, I have never besought favour of man, but I beseech you to save my heart from breaking. Do not marry this girl, who has beguiled you. Give her money, all she asks for' and return to me. If you make her your wife I shell die of shame. Basil, Basil I you are very dear to me, and I deserve something at your hands." Tears arose to my eyes. I bowed my head before him: but I could not do his bidding. "Then one thing remains," he said. "Listen to me. You know I always mean what I say. The hour that you marry this woman you are no longer a son of mine you leave my home, and I legally deprive you of all right to my estate. See!" Be spread before me a parch. ment ; "the deed is drawn; it only needs my deature I will not sign it until you are her hush Ind, for it is my own death-warrant. But when the ring is on her finger I pot my name here." He struck the parchment with the back of hie hand, and thrust it into his bosom. "At the last moment you may draw back," be said. "My lawyer will come to me when the ceremony is eons. pleted, not before." "Father," I said, "your fortune is your own; but you married the woman you loved." ' I married a lady," maid he. "When you marry this washerwoman I sign the deed that disinherits you:' That night I told Pepiia all. "Let him keep his pride and his money;' raid she, and her eyes glittered. And though I believed my father would do as he said, I made ready for my bridal next day. I left the house early in the morning. The door of my father's room was still made fast. He gave me neither curse nor blessing. In the chloral I met Pepita. She had neither relatives nor friends. We stood alone before the priest ; only leaning against a great column, I saw a man wrapped in a cloak, with a sombrero drawn over his face. It was Gulliam, the notary, sent, I knew, to bear tidings of the ceremony to my father. As the priest pronounced the benediction, the notary left the church. We were married. I took Pcpita on my arm; we passed down the aisle and out into the street. As we crossed the pla a, a man, bareheaded and with hair floating In the wind, rophed toward us. "In the name God and all the sa'nts Don Basil— your father- he is dead I—murder° I! I went to meet him by appointment; I found the servants alarmed by his long retirement in his room. We broke doyen the door; he lay en his bed strangled with his own handkerchief." " Suicide, perhapq,"said