Year: 1873

AS intend this article to he political
one, shall endeavo" to keep personalities
out of it, but somehow the subject always
takes me back to the time when Charley
and l first vert out West.


You see it was our wedding tour, and that
alone would be sufficient to make one re-
member journey for lifetime. 1 was
not at all eager that this grandeur should
be added TO our eSpousals, and would much
rather have dispensed with ii. Fashion
was not so extremely rigorous at that time;
and OH, how glad l would have been to have
uot gone away one step from home, but
boarded with mamma!


We might have had that big sunny room
on the second floor, with the little snug
| gerry off, and mamma would have given
me that pretty white and green set, cur
| tains and porcelain aud every thing to
match, and l could have had my own dear
| little rocking g-chair and work box and writ
| ing desk, and we could all have shared the
| piano; 1t needn't have been moved an inch
| out of is old place in the back parlor.
Mamma and I could have been together
| the whole day long, and when evening came





and what dear old, jolly, splendid life it
might have been, If Charley's rich old un-
| Gle had never been born, or hadn't gone out
| West, or hadn't made Charley that very
advantageous offer to bring his young wife
and come out there aud get rich.
| Get rich That was the poison that in
| fused itself into our vtals, and cast that
glittering glamour over every body's Wis
| ion but mine-thank God not mine. |
was too young and too much in love to care
about getting rich, and wasn't so selfish
| ly in love with Charley that could quite
| gladly give up my people and dear old
home to feed an unholy ambition. Every
| kindly aud gracious line in my mothers
face was dear to me; loved every hair,
gray or black, in the head of my father /;
and although my brothers and were con-
tinually having little petty disputes about
something, we kissed and made up ailer-
ward, and loved each other all the more
dearly.


But what with "wilely duty" and "wo-
manly DEVOTION" and 'the grand spirit of
enterprise" the sacrifice was decked out in
such gaudy colors that one was forced to
stop and wonder if it could be possible that
/, Kitty Malcolm, was really going away
from home and kindred, TO travel thous-
ands of miles almost, in fact, TO the exact
spot where the sun really set; TO leave ia
ther and mother and the boys, and 20 away
out there in that desert with Charley
Pierce


My wedding dress was, of course, ruin
ed. While l lay perfectly unconscious and
unable TO demonstrate (ior tainted dead
away at the end of the ceremony, they
drenched me with water, never even put
ting rug or any thing to catch the deluge
and three entire breadths were spoiled be-
yond redemption. Then l wiped my eyes
on my bonnet-strings, and spotted my
gloves, and rumpled my travelling dress
and was altogether very dlsconsolate ant
bedraggled piece OF matrimonial woe wher
we started on that dlreful journey.


OF course loved Charley Pierce. Once
having known him, ] couldn't live withou
him, and II he would go out in that dread
ful region, was compelled to go with him
But l left half my heart, and half m,
youth, and half of so many things behnt
, me that / was quite lapsided creature, an,
never go. over that "gone" feeling that tool
} possession of me when the carriage wen
round the corner, and the last faint outlin,
5 of mamma was lost TO me.