Year: 1869




(From the Council Bluffs Nonpareil)


About ten years ago, the hand of young
lady, whose father had passed beyond the
stage of mere competence in point OF world
ly substance, in the city of st. Louis, was
sought by merchant. Pressing his suit for
some time, he was finally accepted by the
parents, and, being gentleman of means,
the marriage took place with considerable
eclat and display. On his part, he was an
earnest and an affectionate suitor, but by the
parents of the young lady it was degraded
to the degree of q marriage a IL mode. Their
own establishment was set up, the hand
soonest and most elegant of appointments
provided for luxurious and wealthy home,
but it lacked the very essential that will
make palace of a cot. One of the clerks
in the store of the young wOman's father,
was the wolf which beset that household.
Between him and her there had been a clan
destine courtship, and he was 10th when the
prize was carried away, to surrender the
hand of the woman whose heart he already
possessed. The kind of life the married
couple led, will not bear repeating. The
husband tried every expedient to win the
woman who always regarded him with es-
TEEN, but never with affection. One morn
ing he found his home deserted by his wife,
and a note telling him not to pursue her,
that it would be hopeless task. He i'm
mcdiately communicated with the father of
his wife, and to his utter astonishment found
that the Jiides Achates the confidential clerk
of his tatherin-law had also absconded, ta-
king with him a sum of money, but not
enough to endanger the interest and pros
poets of the house. By system of hushlng
known only to those in such entangle-
mcnts, the whole transaction was concealed
from the public. The husband wear
led out the absence of the woman, and
finally obtained a divorce on the grounds of
descrtion. He married again, and with his
Second wife lived happily. Last summer
she died, leaving a motherless boy and girl,
both interesting, sprightly children. The
truant woman (his part of the story is
from her own lips) accompanied her para
mour and lover to the plains. The first year
they spent at Central City and other mining
points in Colorado, the lover, with his small
capital, filched from his employers safe, and
his knowledge of business, being able to do
some mining trade and to make some money.
Thence they went to Salt Lake into South
ern Utah. and finally driited with the tide
oe adventure to the mines of Nevada. No
tidings of their where abouts and meander-
ings ever reached the ears of her heartbroken
parents ami stricken husband At last i'll
fortune befcl them. He grew sick and their
accumuations gradually wasted away. The
States began to have more attractions than
heretofore and they drifted eastward. The
lover, who, in the loose civilization of the
frontier, regarded himself as the lawful hus-
hand, established boarding house on the
Central Pacific Railroad. Here he died.
Alone in the world, the woman came back,
and when she landed in Council Bluffs, was
utterly penniless. Repentant, only as wo-
man can be repentant, even to despair, she
wrote to her father, but both parents being
dead, the letter fell into the hands of the
executor, who showed it to the bereft hus-
band. The latter came here as speedily as
possible, and met his long lost and truant
wife. Both parties went South, but whether
they will ever be so far reconciled as to be
re married remains to be seen. The woman
was pitiable object. Harrassed with want,
haggard with despair, lashed with guilty
conscience, and tortured with want and pri-
vation, there was but shadow other former
l,eauty.