Toccoa news. (Toccoa, Ga.) 18??-1889, March 11, 1882, Image 1

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why pro i A Wife's Confession. few people do; so In this respect I urn neither betted nbr worse than my J;:; b&kaq^e &QL Cartwright simply he asked me. r * This „ R R was how it . happened ( He was the rector of Doveton, and we lived at the mam'rhonsc, which about ten minuted walk from the church and the rectory. Iffe had daily services it Doveton, and 1 nearly always Htjeudqd it. and it came to pass that Mr. Cartwright invariably walked home with me. It was a matter of custom now, and I thought nothing of it; it pleased him, and oh the whole it was rather pleasant to mo aUo. t ) ; .. T p ^4 b’b-ofT 1 must confess however, I was rather surprised when one morning as we got to the avenue which led up to the manor house, Mr. Cartwright asked me to be his wife. I have never been able to find out wiiy I said yes, but [ did ; perhaps / thought it a pity to throw away so muon love ; perhaps it was because ho was so terribly in earnest tint I dared not refuse him ; ; erliaps I feared his pale face, and his low pleading voice, would ever haunt me if I re- jected his love; or perhaps it was be¬ cause he on it/ asked me to marry him he did not ask me if I loved him, for I think lie guessed that I did not; perhaps it was all of these reasons put together, but anyhow j said yes, and in due time wje were married. J ought to have been very happy, for ho was a most devoted husban I but I was not, and though I d.d no. notice it then, l know now that for th • first six months after our mar- nag • he was not happy either. i was all m\ fault 1 cither wool not or could u ( >t love him : 1 accepts all ins d vo'ion to me as a matter o course, but I mad * no effort te return it ; and J f in sure he had found ou that ha had mu le a mistake? in marry¬ ing a woman that did not lore him: One morning about six months :if.er our marriage, he told mo a breakfast that he intended leaving me alone for a few weeks, to stay with his mother, who was not very well, lie watched the effect of this an nounceinout on me. but though I was really displeased l concealed m\ annoyance, and asked carelessly when he would start. lie replied, the next, day if I had no objection, and so it was settled. lie was more affectionate than usual that day and 1 was colder than ever; I only once alluded to his journey and that was to ask if 1 might have my sister Maud to stay while he was g me. The next morning. I was anxious to avoid a formal parting, so I drove to the station with him ; as the train move i off, i remembered this was our first parting since our marriage, and 1 wished 1 had not been so cold. When I got home the house looked so dreary and empty, and there was no one to meet rue ; presently one of the servants came for the shawls, an » with her Zero, ilir. Cartwright’s retriever, which, when lie saw 1 was alone, set up a howl for his master. I patted him and tried to comfort him, feeling rebuked for his grief, as he followed me whining* into the housc. Every roan seemed empty and each spoke of the absent master; at last 1 wandered into his study, where he spent his nurnings and liked me to sit and work, an l now 1 remembered how f often 1 had excused myself, say 7 . ing, 1 preferred the drawing room, and this reflection did not add to my happiness. ‘Tuere was a photograph of me standing on his writing table, and another on the chimney piece; ou the wails hung two or three of ray draw¬ ings, which be had begjjcd of me when we were engaged; indeed the room was full of little remembrances of me; I opened a book I had given him, and in it was his name in my hand¬ writing, and underneath in his own, ‘From n»y darling wife.’ I had laid it down with a sigh, as I thought how carefully he had treasured everything j had ever gi eu him and how little care 1 took of all his gifts to me. Everything I attempted, everything I looked at reminded me of his good- NEWS b,.*. VOL. IX. mess to me, and of my coldness and ingratitude to him. At las/1 went to bed, where, after working myself into a fever of anxiety lest he should not have reached the end of his journey in safety, I at length cried myself to sleep. The next morning I went clown to breakfast with a heavy heart, for 1 knew 1 could not hear from him till the next day; it seemed so strange to brea/ifast alone, and Nero appeared to think so too, for he was most unhap py, sniffing round his master’s chair in the most melancholy manner. * My plate, tor the first time since my marriage, was empty, as I sat down to breakfast, lor my husband, who w r as an early riser, always had a little bouquet to greet me with every morning; frequently 1 forgot all about it and left it to be put in water by the servant; this morning I would have treasured it most carefully, if he eon Id have gathered it, After breakfast I determined to rouse myself, and go and visit some of the poor people in the village, so 1 filled my basket with some little delicacies for the sick and set out. JV herever * went it was the same story ; all held foith cHi-my husband s goodness and kindness, tor all had neen helped by him in some way or other, and all loved and respected him. As 1 listened with burning cheeks, * felt as if 1 was the only per- son on earth who had treated him with nunung ingrat'tude, and I was t ic only person whom he most loved aud cherished. .it last i went home, tired and s ck at heart; but there was no one to notice i was pale and worn out, no one to get me wine or soup to revive me, no one to make me lie down and rest, as he would have done had he been there. O, how I missed him 1 What a fool l had been! \V as there ever a woman loved aud carei for as i had been? Iff.is there ever a friend so ungrateful? O, why had i ever let him leave me? 1 was sure he would never come back. Iff by had he gone away? And conscience answered : ‘You drove him ; he gave you all he had to give and in return you gave him nothing but cold looks and unkind words; and so he left you, to seek love and sympathy from his mother. This thought almost maddened me ; in fancy I saw her sitting in ray place by his side, loving and caress¬ ing him, as I had the best right to love and caress him; 1 pictured her receiving tenderly the little loving acts I had received so coldly, and now I was seized with ajealous anger against her. i mentally accused her of estranging my husband from me. and of trying to win his love from me, as thougir his heart was not large enough for both of us. When Maud arrived in the after¬ noon, I treated her to a long tirade of abuse against mothers-in-law in gener¬ al. and my own in particular and vented all the anger I really felt against myself, ou the innocent Mrs. Cartwright. ‘Why, Nelly,’ said Maud*‘I thought you liked M rs. Cartwright so much, and thought her so nice, that you even wanted her to live with you, only your husband very properly, a, “^SoTdTTAnawnred- would’ bat I did not Allow then she ever entice mv my husband husband away away from flora me me in in this this way or of course I should never have liked her.’ ‘Really iVell you are ve r v hard on thepoqawomaa; for,as 1 understand, Mr. Cartwright went to her of his own free Will, because she was not well. and he thought his company would do her good,’ said Maud. ‘Nonsense. I am sure he would never have left me alone unless she had put him up to it,’ I replied rather crossly. ‘The truth is, Nelly, you are so much in love with your husband that you are jealous even of his mother; Devoted te News. Politics. Agriculture and General progress- rn 'i J V 11 . and you arc making yourself misera- bio about nothing. Why, Mr. wrighfc wili be back in a fortnight, and I dare say you. will get a letter from him every day ; so cheer upj and let us go for a drive said Maud. + I agreed to this plan; and giving Maud the reins, j lay back and tlvought of her words-. Was she right after all? Was I jealous? Jf'as I ready, as Maud said, in love with mv husband? Had I only found it now since I was deprived of his company? Was this the reason that could do nothing but inwardly reproach myself f >r ray conduct to him? And the longer I thought the more convinced I became that Maud was right; that I was jealous, - and that I was in love, as she called it. 7’his knowledge did not make me happier, for 1 no sooner knew I loved h im than I longed to tell him so, and make up, as far as I could, for all my iorincr cruelty ; for I could call my conduct by no milder word. 1 passed a sleepless night, and as I Jay awake I compose 1 various letters ofe mfession, vvhicli J resolved to send tiie follow- ing day ; but when morning came mv pride stepped in, and I began to feel ^ vvou p| ^ )e impossible to write, and I mils t wait till my husband came home an q then tell him how his absence had a ]tered me. / got up early and walked out to mec t the postman, so anxious was I to get a le'.ter from him ; it was the first, l ha 1 ever received from him since our marriage ; and no girl was ever so anxious for. or so pleased with, her first love-letter, as I was over this. It was a long letter, full of loving messages and terms of endearment some of winch cut mo to the heart, for they sounded like so many re¬ proaches ; in reality i think there w T as a tone of gentle reproach throughout the letter. He gave me an account of his journey, ansi of his mother’s heabh, begged me to write to him a few lines every day, but he said not a single word about returning. I spent the morning in answering it,-much to Maud’s amusement, w'ho, of course, thought I wns pouring out volumes of love and complaints of mv temporary widowhood; after tearing up a dozen sheets of paper 1 at last sent a short note, cool and with no allusions to my misery The more I tried the more impossible I found it to write any expression of love or penitence, though I was hungering to do so. For a whole week I went on in this way, suffering more acutely every day, and every day receiving long, loving- letters from Mr, Cartwright, and writing short, cold answers. I lost my appetite, I could not sleep at night, and the torture I was en¬ during made me look so ill that Maud became frightened, and declared she would write and summon my husband home, and tell him I was pining away for him. I forbade her doing this so sternly that she dared not disobey me, for I was determined he should never hear from any lips but mine that at last his heart’s desire was attained, for i loved him. At last, when he bar! bee,, a «v ten days, I could bear it no longer, termined to go to Melton where Mrs- Cartwright lived and see ray husband I came to this decision one night, and went lIKOs room e , -N ltt **“ . e morning to tell her of my intention, I expected she would laugh at me, but 1 th'niahegpiqssed something was WTOI1 g tor she seemed glad to auf * helped me to pack & and set off in time to catch the morning train. It was three hours’ journey; they seemed three years to me, for the nearer I got to ray husband the more impatient 1 was to see him. At last I got to Melton, a large town. Of course., as I was not expected, there was no one to meet me, so I took a fly to Mrs. Cartwright’s house about 3 I learned afterward that Andrew was with his mother in the little drawing room when i drove up, but thinking that I was only a visitor, he escaped into another room, so 1 found my m >fher-in-law alone. B\ her side was some of my bus- band’s socks, which she was darning : which I had handed over to the servants to mend, and which I now longed to snatch away from his moth cr. His desk stood open, a letter to me, which he wns writing, w as lying on it, The servant announced me as il/rs. Andrews, my voice failing as I gave my name, so that Mrs. Cartwright held up her hands in astonishment when she saw who it was. ‘iliy dear ! Nelly ! Has anything happened? How ill you look ! What is it? she exclaimed. ‘I want my husband,’ I gasped, sinking on to a chair, for I thought 1 should have fallen. Without another word Mrs. Cart¬ wright left the room; and i felt sure now she guessed all about it, and I can never thank her enough .for for¬ bearing to worry me with questions as to what I had come for. She came back in a few minutes with a glass of wine, which she made me drink of saying she would send to meet me at once if-I took it. f complied, and she went to fetch him : in another minute 1 heard his step outside the door, and then he came in, ‘Nelly, my love, my darling ! what is it?* he cried, as i rushed into his outstretche > arms and hid my face on his breast, sobbing bitterly. For some moments I could not speak, at last l recovered myself enough to sob out: ‘Oh, Andrew, mv love ! my dear love can you ever forgive me ! I came to ask you, and tell you I can’t live without you.’ I would have sai 1 more, but hie /rinses stopped my mouth, and when at length lie let me go, there were }tber tears upon my cheeks beside my own. That was the happiest hour of my life, in spite of ray tears, and before my mother-in-law again joined us which she discreetly avoided doing till dinner time, I had poured out all 1 had to tell into my husband s ears, and 1 had learned from him that he had left me to try what effects his absence would have on me ; for he had felt for sometime that my pride . was the great barrier he had to over¬ come to win my love. He had judged right He was too generous to tell me how' much he had suffered from my indifference, and I know it must have grieved him terri¬ bly. He is a different man now, he looks so happy, and I know he would not change places with any one on earth. We went back to the rectory the next day, but we could not persuade i/rs. Cartwright to come w ith us ; she said we were best alone, and I think she was right. A1 tho w « ddin * breakfast of WMte ' law Keid and Miss Mills tbe groom K for $503,000 from the father of the bnde ; *' e ' T I" o: ' k P a Per. At the wedding breakfast of a Chicago man the groom found at his plate a slip of P a P or ^ ... proved A to . . be tail » > a j » Ile gave it to the father of the n ^ ^'d^fnrt^^WihTriilea^o * L n >n __ ,,, _____ Apiculture has been prohibited in Paris. The Parisian says: One would scarcely have expected to find beehives in the great city. There are, however, quantities in the neighbor- hood of the markets and of the sugar refineries, and Paris honey is quoted as a first-class article, inasmuch as it is .really hor\ey made by bees.' i TEEMS-$1 50 A YEAft. NO. 3 5 . INTENSELY UTTER. A few months ago the daughter of a Rockland man) who has grown comfortably well off in the small grocery line, was sent away to a ‘female college,’ and t last week she arrived home for the vacation. The old man was in attendance at the depot when the train arrived, with the old horse in the delivery wagon to convey his daughter and her trunk to the house. When the train stopped, a bewitching array of dry- goods and a wide-brimmed hat dashed from the car and flung itself into the elder party’s arras. ‘Why, you superlative pal’ she exclaimed ; ‘I'm ever so utterly glad to see you,’ The old man was somewhat un¬ nerved by the greeting, but he recog¬ nized the seal-skin cloak in his grip as the identical piece of property he had paid for with the bay' mare, aud he sort of squeezed it up in his arms, and planted a kiss where it would do the most good with a report that sounded above the noise of the depot. In a brief space of time the trunk and its attendant baggage were load- ed into the wagon, which was soon bumping over the bubbles toward home •Da, dear,’ said the young Miss, surveying the team with a critical eve, *do yon consider this quite excessively beyond? •Hey? returned the old man with a puzzled air;‘quite excessive beyond what? Beyond Warren? I consider it somewhat about ten miles bevond d arron, countin’ from the Bath way, ‘ if that's what vou mean.’ •Oh, no. pa; you don’t understand me,’ the daughter explained ; ‘I mean this wagon and horse. Do you think they are soulful?-do you think they could be studied apart in the light of a svmphonv, appear'as or even a simple poem, and intensely utter to one returning home, as one could ex- g8 p. . The old man twisted uneasily in liia seat and uttered something about lie believed it used to be used for an express before he bought it to deliver pork in, but the conversation seemed to be traveling in such a lonesome direction that he fetched the horse a resounding cracfc on the rotunda, and the severe jolting over the frozen ground prevented further remarks. ‘Oh. „, there ,. is . that lovely ana , con- summatema! , screamed , the returned , collegiatess, „ . . they , drew the , ’ as up at door, , and presently , she , was lost ... m the embrace of a motherly J woman in . spectacles. , ‘V\ ell. Maria, said the old man at the supper table as he , nipped . , a p.eee of butter off the lump with his own knife, 'an, bow’d you like your school? ‘Well, th.re, pa, now you re sliou -I mean I consider it far too be- yond, replied the daughter. It is unquenchably ineffable, The girls are so sumptuously stunning-I mean grand-so exquisite-so intense. And then the parties, the balls and the rides—oh, the past weeks have been one sublime harmony.’ ‘I s’pose so—I s pose so,’ nervous¬ ly assented the old man, as he reached for his third cup. ‘Half full. Z?ut how about your books —readin,’ writin,’ grammar, rule o’ three—how about them?’ ‘Pa, don’t!’ exclaimed tbe daughter reproachfully. The rule o’ three! Grammar! It is French and music ana Painting and the divine in art that have made my shool-life the boss—I mean that have rendered one unbroken flow of rhythmic bliss i— incomparable and exquisitely ail , but,’ • j The grocery man and his wife j looked helplessly at one another across the table. ‘How do you like the biscuits, Maria?’ | They are too-utter for anything,* gushed the accomplished young lady* and this plum preserve is a poem within itself.’ * The old man arose abruptly from the table; fcfcd went out of the room, rubbing his head irf a daz©5 affiT' benumbed manner, and the Mass ffonvention was dissolved, Tli at night he and his wife sat alone by th© stove until a late hour, and althfr breakfast table the nett morning he rapped smartly on his plate With the r handle of his knife and remarked: ? ‘Maria—me an’ your mother haye been talkin’ of the thing over, au‘ we’ve come to the conclusion that this boardin' school business is too utter¬ ly all but too much nonsense. Jlfeii** her consider that we haven't lived sixty odd consummate years for the purpose of raisin’ a cariosity, an there’s goin* to be a stop put to this unquenchable foolishness Now. after you've finished catin’ that poem of fried sausage, and that symphony of twisted doughnut, you tane an’ dust up stairs in less than two seconds, an’ peel otfthat fancy gown a.ff put on a caliker, au‘ then come an’ help your mother wash the dishes- I want it distinctly understood that there ain't goin* to be no more rhyth'* mic foolishness in this house so long as your superlative pa an’ your lovely an’ consummate ma is a runnin’ the ranch. You hear me, Maria?’ SAD INCIDENT OF THE FLOOD. ^ R oc p Gazette Alexander Jasper, an old man from Crittenden conntr, arrived in the city last night, bringing with him Ins w.fo and two boys. He seemed to be m « ,eat distrea!s ‘ a,,d when questioned by a Gazette man he told the follow- nig story. You know, lie said, that the whole country is under water*. I am one of the sufferers of the flood. I lived in tbe Mississippi bottom, not * ftr ^ roEa Madison, f settled there » ovcral vcars a S° aud< T cued a sma11 - farm - 1 bad heard of high water, but the place where I settled seemed to be high, and 1 did not feel any fear, ' Ve,! - hi 8 h water calue re Peatedlv, but ;t nevcr reac ' ,ed me ’ N, 8 l,t beforo last wMle <W»«y *» supper we were startled by a terrible roar - 1 went t0 t!,e door and loo? ' ;cd out but coa,d see nothin S’ wife suggested that the noise might be cauaed b J watcr - but 1 dld not P a 7 mucb attention to the remark, for i did not sec bow watcr cou!d b f eak through with such force. While 1 stood listening there came a mighty rush and before I knew it the whole country was flooded with water. I called to my wife to help me secure tbe childteu ’ 3 ’ he housc ,va9 ful1 of water - 1 seized one little girl, and my wifo scized the otUcr ’ The bou,e moved, the lamp fell and was extin- g u *s!icd. I called to my little boy, and received a strangled reply. I rushcd through ttie flood toward the place 1 from which I thought T the sound ' catae, and , called , again, but . no reply, t The house wcut , to , pieces. . T I seized • i wife .„ and , struggled . , . with .... her to . my a slight . elevation. - .. The roar was deafening. , „ . W Tlr e remained . , there .. until ... morning. ® IFhenlightcame.arush- mg . torrent . . sweft r , over the .. site .. of ~ our M , |ttIe bo was e .- "st ___ __ A clergyman bis hat one even- ing. and was obliged to go home with a shabbier one, which was left in the place of it . Next day ti.c hat was rfc t urnet i by the penitent appropria* tor who said . . I U never take a minister . hat again Yo t think 6 . u can wfaat q(Jeer things r Ve had rBDning throng b mv bead ever since I put that ^ t Qn . \V ASHINGTOX 4 N 0 TES—WA3HISG- ton, March 2.—The Senate con- firmed the nominations of Conkling to the Supreme Bench and Sargent to the German Mission. The President nominated Cornelius A. Logan, of Illinois, Envoy Extraordinary aud Minister Plenipotentiary of the Uni- ted States to Chile; John B. Weaser, of North Carolina, to be United States Consul at Bahia. The vote on Conklings confirm*- tion is understood to have been o‘J yeas against 12 nays—8 Democrats and four Republicans, namely. Hoar, Dawes, Morrill aud Hawley. Sar- gent’s nomination was confirmed without division. The Senate also confirmed William F. Poston, United States Attorney for the Western I)is- trict of 7enne c sec.