Year: 1866

I y


her.


"Thee gel rich y said the widow BGgh,
and she held up her hands deprecatipgly.


Strange things happen sometimes y
returned Jack, and he resumed his dig
ging with renewed energy All that af-
ternoon he dug away as dough his lite
depended on it.


The next day he planted his beans
He evidently. turned over new leaf, and
the widow aud her neigboors thought the
lad was bewitehed, as perhaps he might
have been. At any rate he had set to
work in earnest, and he soon found plenty
to do, the farmers being nothing 10Th to
give employment 20 one who, despite his
idleness, was a ge>eral fayorite.


Nelly alone held aloof. Jack was get
ting beyond her patronage; he had sud
denly become more manly, and seemed as
if he had srnwna bead tguer FL at once
and Nelly turned shy, and it was all he
could do to get stray words from her nov
and then.


1t was clear that she would have moth
Ing to say to bin, vhi3h jack thought
rather hard after all the trouble lie had
taken to please her; and the more he
pondered over it the less he could under
stand it. Nelly used to be so irieudly.-
perhaps if were rich map she might
give thought TO me" said Jack, and SO
he determined to go elsewhere, to seek his
fortune, and return and make Nelly bis
wife.


When he went to say goodbye to her,
he did it in rather blundering way.


MAY be shall find you married when
[ come home again. said the poor lad
looking #istiuily at her.


May he you will, returned Nelly, "if
I find any one l like whilst you are away"


And SO they parted, and both repcnicd
their speeches when it was too late to 70
call them


"Woll, what is to he, is to be- sollo-
qnized Jack, endoavoring to find consola-
ton therein, ''but Nelly's the only woman
that shall ever be my wife"


When Jack was gone, Neilg went
often to see the widow Blish and was a
g.eat comfort to her, and their conversa-
ton always turned upon Jack.


\ year passed away, and no tidings
came of him. Then another. and the
two women did not talk so much now, but
they sat quietly at their work when Nelly
could spare time from the dairy, and it
was consolation to them to be together.


At the beginning of the next year
Nelly was summoned to her home in
distant country. Her mother was dying,
and as she did not come back, the widow
Biigh was left to bear the trouble alone
and through the spring and into the sum
mer she watched and watched and every
morning she opened her shutters and lei
in daylight, she wondered whether that
day would bring her son home, and every
eveaing as the daylight faded away, she
she said, "be may come to morrow"


Aud ct length the tomorrow came, and
a handsome sailor walked up the village
street into bis mothers cottage; and soon
the news spread abroad that Jack Bligh
bad come home with bags Of gold gui
ueas.


But that was not of course true. The
first person that Jack asked after was
Nelly Giles, but he could hear nothing of
her.


"Never mind her, jack said the wild
ow, who was quite content, now that she
had her son, aud indeed did not much
care for a rival, ''sho's not worth thinking
5i."


But Jack was not Of his mothers opin-
ion, and he was scarcely sorry to go away
again, for the old place seemed very
lreary without Nelly.


This time he was able to write TO his
mother occasionally, for he had brushed
II, his writing, and it was proud day
or the widow when the schoolmaster
,amc in to read her sons letters


a second time Jack Bligh came home,
md this time hired carriage, laden with
,oxes and packages, stopped at the wild
'w's door, for Jack was prospering.


But nothing had been heard Of Nelly,
md Jack could not bear the sight of the
inc things be had brought, for he had
Intended the most Of them for her.


"I;'s all through those beans" thought
poor Jack, "that came 70 90 away" II