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look at the other miie.
Should you bear a etniOße, nncanny tale,
Fron. the Itpn of a iproarip bold—
A tale jfwronp, perhaps ofehaine,
That, fills you with ffrief untold;
That makes yon lose your faith in man.
E’en the trusty ami the tried—
Don't take It too much to heart my friend,
Till you’ve looked at the other side—
Till you’ve weighed In the bnlanee of the Just
All the minute words and deeds.
Aye. winnowed the wheat and left the chaff.
And counted the golden seeds.
Who knows, when you let the sunlight In.
And open the window wide,
Hut you’ll find more white than black, my
friend ?
Then look at the other side.
Although, in all ypur daily toil,
To hurry mav be your plan,
(io slow, mid let moderation reign
In judging your fellow man.
Just pnt yourself in his place awhile,
And then be sure to do
As you, when the saddest trials.come,
Would have men do unto you.
If we try to follow, each day we live,
This beautiful golden rule,
He sure of this, In the wide, wide world
We can find no better school.
The tale-bearers then, we may defy,
Whatever they may confide,
For we shall lie sure, ere we condemn,
To look at the other side.
Faith lilts her telescope on high,
And brings the heavenly glories nigh.
Hope trims her taper with a prayer.
That she may find an entrance there.
Love stoops to earth in service sweet,
And foremost treads the golden street.
nVFRWMFI
M 1 - - - ,—<- -M - -- . md. . I
BY WALTER BESANT.
So perplexed were we with the strango
and unintelligible intelligence that, after
turning it about in talk for a week, it was
resolved that we would consult Mr. Car
naby in the matter It would perhaps
have been better if we had kept the thing
to ourselves For this gentleman, though
be kindly considered the case, could do
nothing to remove the dreadful doubt
under which we lay. except that he re
commended us to patience and resigna
tion. virtues of which. Heaven knows 1 we
women who stay at home must needs con
tinually practice We should, Isay, have
done better had we held our tongues, be
cause Mr. Carnaby told the barber, who
told the townsfolk one by one, and then it
was whispered about that Ralph had
Joined the gypsies, according to some; or
been pressed and sent to sea. according to
others; or had enlisted, according to
others, with wild stories told in addition,
born of imagination, idle or malignant, as
that he had joined a company of common
rogues and robbers; or—but l scorn to re
peat these tilings Everybody, however,
at this juncture, rernenibered the wicked
things said of the boy by his cousin. As
for Mathew himself , overjoyed at the wel
come news, which he received open
mouthed, so to speak, he went about call
ing all his acquaintances to witness that
he had long since prophesied ruin and dis
aster to the boy, which, indeed, to the
fullest extent, a lad so depraved as to
horsewhip his own guardian, richly de
served. As for coming back, ho said that
was not likely, and. indeed, impassible,
because he was already knocked on the
head—Mathew was quite convinced of
this—in some midnight brawl, or at least
fallen so low that he would never dare to
return among respectable people. These
things we could not believe, yet they sank
Into our hearts and made us uneasy. For
where could the boy be, and why did he
not send us one letter, at least, to tell us
what he had done, aud how he had fared?
“Child,” said rny grandmother, “it is
certain that Mathew does not wish his
cousin to return He bears malice in his
heart against the boy, aud he remembers
that should he never get back the mill
will be his own." Already he began to
give himself the airs o t the master, and
to talk of selling a held here and a field
there, and of improving the property, as
if all was his
“He will come back,” said the fugle
man. “Brave hearts and lusty legs do
not get killed Maybe he hath enlisted.
Then he may have gone a-soldiering to
America, or somewhere in the world, and
no doubt will get promotion —ay, corporal
first, sergeant next, and perhaps be made
fugleman Or maybe, as your lady mother
says, he hath been pressed, and is now at
sea, so that lie cannot write. But, wherever
he is, be sure ho is doing well. Where
fore, heart up!”
Well, to shorten the story, we got no
news at all, and could never discover, for
many years, what had become of the boy.
When four years bad passed by without
a word or line from him, Mathew grew
horribly afraid, because Ralph’s one-aud
twentieth birthday drew near, and he
thought the time was come when the heir
would appear and claim his own. What
preparations he made to receive him I
know not. Perhaps a blunderbuss and a
cup of poison But the day passed, and
there was no sign of Ralph. Then, indeed,
Mathew became q uite certain that ho would
no more be disturbed and that the mill
was his own.
As for myself, I sat at homo chiefly
with my grandmother, who was now be
ginning to grow old. yet brisk and nota
ble still There was a great deal to be
done, and the days pass swiftly to indus
trious hands, yet not one so busy and
not one so swift but I could find time
to think and to pray for Ralph.
Still the fugelman kept, up my heart,
and Sailor Nan swore, as if she was
still captain of the foretop. that he
would come home safe. I was young,
happily, and youth is the time for hope.
And about the end of the sixth year I
had cause to think about other tilings,
because my own misfortunes began.
I had long observed in the letters cf my
dear parents a certain difference, which
constantly caused doubt and questioning;
for my mother exhorted me continually,
in every letter, to the practice of frugal
ity. thrift, simple living, and the acquisi
tion of housewifely knowledge, and, in
short, all those virtues which especially
adorn the condition of poverty. She also
never failed to bid me reflect upon the un
certainty of human affairs and the insta
bility of fortune; and every letter frur
nished examples of rich men become poor,
and great ladies reduced to beg their
bread. . My grandmother bade me lay
these things to besrt, and I per
ceived that she was disturbed, and
site would have written to my father
to a&k If things were going ill. but for
two reasons. The first was that she oould
neither read nor write, those arts not hav
ing been taught her in her childhood; and
I testify that she was none the worse for
want of them, but her natural shrewdness
even increased, because she had to depend
upon herself, and could not still be run
ning to a book for guidance. The second
reason was that the letters of my father,
both to her and to myself, were full of
glorious anticipation and confidence. Yes,
while my mother wrote in sadness he
wrote In triumph; when she bade me
learn to scour pots he commanded mo to
study the fashions, when she prophesied
disaster he proclaimed good fortune.
Thus he ordered that I was to be taught
whatever could bo learned in so remote a
town as Work worth, and that especial
care was to be taken in my carriage and
demeanor, begging my grandmother to
observe the deportment of Mrs. Car
naby, and to bid mo copy her as an exam
ple, for, he said, a city heiress not uncom
monly married with a gentleman of good
family, though impoverished fortunes;
that some city heiresses had of late mar
ried noblemen; that as he had no son. aor
any other child but myself, I would in
herit the whole of his vast fortune (I
thought how I could give it all to Ralph),
and, therefore, I must study how to main
tain myself in the position which I should
shortly occupy He desired me especially
to pay very particular attention not to
seem quite rustical und country bred, and
to remember that the common speech of
Northumberland would raise a laugh in
London. With much more to the same
effect.
I say not that my father wrote all this
In a single letter, but in several; so that
all these things became implanted in my
mind, and both my grandmother and my
self were, in spite of my mother's letters,
firmly persuaded that we were already
very rich and considerable people, and
that my father was a merchant of tho
greatest renown—already a common coun
cilman. and shortly to be alderman,
sheriff and lord mayor—in the city of Lon
don. This belief was also held by our
neighbors and friends, and It gave my
grandmother, who was, besides, a lady of
dignified manners, more consideration
than she would otherwise have obtained,
with the title of madam, which was
surely due to the mother of so great and
successful a man.
Now the truth was this: My father was
the most sanguine of men, and the most
ready to deceive himself. He lived con
tinually (if I may presume to say so with
out breaking the fifth commandment) in a
fool’s paradise. When he was a boy
nothing would do for him but ho must go
to London, refusing to till the acres which
would afterward be his own, because ho
was ambitious, and ardently desired to be
another Whittington. See the dangers of
the common chap books, in which he had
read the story of tips great lord mayor!
He so far resembled Whittington that he
went up to London (by wagon from New
castle) with littlo in his pocket,
except a letter of recommendation
from the then vicar of Wark
worth to his brother, at the time a
glover in Cheapside. How he became
apprentice—like Whittington—to this
glover, how he fell hi love —like Whitting
ton—with his master’s daughter, how ho
married her—like Whittington —and in
herited the business, stock, capital, good
will and all, may hero only be thus briefly
told; but by thd death of his master he
became actual aud sole owner of a London
shop, whereupon, my poor father's brain
being always full of visions, he was in
flamed with the confidence that now, in
deed. he had nothing to look for but the
making of an immense fortune. Worso
than this, he thought that the fortune
would come of its own accord. How a
man living in the city of London could
make so prodigious a mistake, I know
not. Therefore he left the whole care of
the business to his wife and his apprentice,
and for his own part spent the day in coffee
houses or on ’change, or wherever mer
chants and traders meet together. This
mndo him full of great talk, and he pres
ently proceeded to imagiue that he him
self was concerned in the great ventures
and enterprises of which ho heard i
much, or perhaps, because he could no
actually have thought himself a merchant
adventurer, he believed that before long
he also should be embarking cargoes to
the East and West Indies, running under
convoy of frigates safe through the ene
my’s privateers. It was out of the profits
of these imaginary cargoes that ho was to
obtain that vast wealth of which ho con
tinually thought and talked until, in the
end. he believed that he possessed it.
Meantime his poor wife, my mother, left
in charge of the shop, and with her house
hold cares as well, found, to her dismay,
that the respectable business which her
father had made was quickly falling from
them, as their old friends died, one by
one, or retired from trade, and no new
ones coming in their places; for, as I have
been credibly informed, the business of a
tradesman or merchant in London is so
precarious and uncertain that, unless it
bo constantly watched, pushed, nursed,
encouraged, coaxed, fed and flattered, it
presently withers away and perishes.
For want of the master’s presence, for
lack of pushing and encouragement, the
yearly returns of the shop grew less and
less. No one knew this except my
'mother. It was useless to tell ray father.
If she begged his attention to the fact, he
only said that business was, in the nature
of things, fluctuating; that a bad year
would be succeeded by a good year; that
largo profits had recently been mado by
traders to Calicut and Surinam, where he
had designs of employing his own capital,
and that ventures to Canton had of late
proved extremely successful. Alas, poor
man! ho had no capital left, for now all
was gone —capital, credit and custom.
Yet he still continued to believe that his
shop, the shop which came to him with
his wife, was bringing to him, every year,
a great and steady return, and that he
was amassing a fortune.
One day—it was a Saturday evening in
May—in the year 1770, six years after the
flight of Ralph Exnbieton, when I was in
my seventeenth year, and almost grown to
my full height. I saw coming slowly along
the narrow road which lead* from the high
way to W ark worth a country cart, and in
it two peraooa. the driver walking at the
horse’s head. I stood at the garden gate
watching this cart idly, and the setting
sun behind H. without so much as won
dering who these persons might be. until
presently It came slowly down the road,
here slopes gently to the river and
the bridge, and pulled up in front of our
gate. When the curt stopped a lady got
quickly down and seized my hands
“You are my Drusilla?” she asked, and
without waiting for a reply, because she
was my mother and knew I could be no
other than her own daughter, she fell upon
my neck in a passion of weeping and sob
bing, saying that she knew I was her
daughter dear, and that she was my most
She knew I was her daughter dear .
unhappy ruined mother. It was my father
who descended after her. He advanced
with dignified step and the carriage of or.o
in authority. I observed that his linen
and the lace of his ruffles were of the very
finest, and his coat, though dusty, of the
finest broadcloth. He see ned not to
perceive my mother’s \ >ars; he kissed me
and gave me his blessing He bade the
carter, with majestic air, lead the “coach”
—he called the country cart a coach—and
take great care of the horse, which ho
said was worth forty guineas If a >iuuy;
but the horse was a 10-year-old ea.* torso,
worth at most four guineas, as I knew
very well, because I carrier
Amazed at this extraordinary behavior.
I led my parents to my grandmother, and
then we presently learned the truth. My
fc.ther, if you please, was ruined; he was
a bankrupt; his schemes of greatness had
come to nothing; his vast fortune lay in
his imagination only; he had lost his wife’s
money and his own. He had returned to
his native county,, his old friends having
clubbed together and made a little purse
for him, and his creditoas having con
sented to accept what they could get and
to give him a quittance ir* full, because he
was known to be a man of Integrity;
otherwise he might have been lodged in
jail, where many an unfortunate, yet
honest, man lieth In misery.
The disaster was more than my father’s
brain could bear. First, as soon as he
fairly understood what had happened, he
fell into a lethargy, sitting in a chair all
day in silence, and desiring nothing but
to be left alone. After a while the lethargy
tfianged into a restlessness, and he must
needs be up and doing something—it mat
tered not what. Then the restlessness
disappeared and he became again his old
self, as cheerful, as sanguine, as confident,
with no other change than a more settled
dignity of bee ring, caused by the belief,
the complete delusion, that now his for
tune was indeed made; that he possessed
boundless wealth, and that he was going
to leave London and to retire into the
country, as many great merchants used to
do, in order to enjoy it.
He was fully possessed with the idea
that he was as wealthy as he ever desired
to be. His poor brain was turned, indeed,
on this point, and after a while I thought
little of it, because we became accustomed
to it. and because it seemed a harmless
craze. Yet it was not harmless, as you
will hear. Indeed, even an innocent babe
in arms may be made the instrument of
mischief in the hands of a wicked man.
Our first visitor was Mathew Humble.
He came first, he said, to pay his respects
to my father. Then ho began to come
with great regularity. But I perceived
soon, for I was no longer a child, but
already a woman, that he had quite
another object in view, for he cast his
eyes upon me in such a way as no woman
can mistake. Even to look upon those
eyes of his made me turn sick with loath
ing. Why, if this man had been another
Apollo fbr beauty I would not have re
garded him. and so far was he from an
Apollo that a fat; and loathsome satyr
more nearly resembled him.
He was already three or four and thirty,
which I. being 17, regarded as a very
great age indeed; and most Northumbrian
folk are certainly married and the fathers
of children already tall before that time.
He was a man who made no friends, and
lived alone with his sister Barbara. No
girl at all, so far as I know, could boast
of having received any attentions from
him; he was supposed to care for nothing
except money and strong drink. Every
evening he sat by himself in the room
which overlooks the river, with account
books before him. and drank usquebaugh.
But he loved brandy as well, or Hollands,
or rum, or indeed anything which was
strong. And being naturally short of
stature he was grown fat and gross, with
red hanging cheeks, which made his small
eyes look smaller and more pig like, a
double chin, and a nose which already told
a tale of deep potations, sored and swollen
was it. What girl of 17 could regard
with favor—even if there were no imago
of a brave and comely boy already im
pressed upon her heart—such a man as
this, a mere tosspot and a drinker? And.
worst of all, a secret and solitary drinker
—a gloomy drinker.
* CHAPTER VI.
THE LETTER AT LAST.
It was strange that, about the time
when Ralph’s disappearance was first
heard of, rumors ran about the town that
perhaps the mill would turnout, after all.
to be the property of Mathew Humble;
that these rumors were revived at the ap
proach of Ralph’s 21st birthday, and that
again, when Mathew first began his ap
prentices to me, the rumor was again cir
culated. By the help of the fugleman l
traced these rumors to the barber; and.
fttili with Ids help-—because every man
must be shaved, and. while being shaved,
must talk—l traced these to none other
than Mathew himself He had then.
Home object to gam. 1 knew not what at
the time l.ater on I discovered that his
design was to make it appear — should
Ralph ever return— that I had taken him
for a husband when i thought he was the
actual master aud owner of all. for I be
lieved he allowed himself no doubt as to
the result of his offers Doth it not seem
as if the uglier, the older, the less attract
ive a man is whether in person or in
mind, the more certain he becomes of con
quering a woman’s heart?
The rumor on this occasion was more
certain and distinct than before It was
now stated that Mr Embletou was dis
covered to have mado a later will, which
had been proved, and was ready to be
produced if necessary, that In this will
the testator after deploring the badness
of heart manifested by l.?s nephew Ralph,
devised the whole of his property to his
nephew Mathew The barber, for his
part, had no doubt of the truth of this
report, but those who asked Mathew
whether it was true received mysterious
answers, as that time would show; that
in this world no one should be certain of
anything; that many is the slip between
cup and lip. that should an occasion arise
the truth of the story would bo tested,
such oracles as incline the hearers to be
lieve all that has been said—and more.
Barbara, his sister, for her own part,
showed great willingness to answer any
questions which might be put to her. But
she knew little, her brother, she said,
was a close man. who sat much alone and
spoke little
And then the fugleman told mo a very
strange story indeed, and one which
seemed to bode no good to any of us By
this time I so regarded Mathew that 1
could not believe he o6uld do or design
aught but evil This was wreng. but he
was most certainly a man of very evil dis
position
His own private business, the fugleman
told me—this was nothing in tho world,
os I very well knew, but the snaring of
rabbits, hares, partridges, and other game
on the banks of the river—led him some
times past Morwick Mill, in the evening
or late at night There was a room in the
mill—the same room in which Mathew
was vanquished and beaten—the window
of which looked out upon the river, which
is here a broad and shallow brook. The
bank rises steep on the other side, and is
•-lotbed with thick hanging woods in which
no one ever walked except the fugleman,
and he. for those purposes I have just
mentioned, always alone and after sun
down Now his eyes were like unto the
i-yes of a hawk, they knew not distance,
they oould see. quite far off. little things
■i* well as great things, and the
fugleman saw. night after night,
that Mathew Humble was sitting locked
up in his room, engaged in writing or
copying something 1 believe that if the
fugleman Rad kuown how to read, he
would have read the writing even across
the river Unhappily, he had never
learned that art Mathew was making a
copy, the fugleman said, of some other
document. But what that document was
he could not tell It was something on
large sheets of paper, and in big hand
writing Me wrote very slowly, compar
ing word for word with the papers which
he seemed copying. Once when there was
a noise as of some one at the door, he hud
dled ail the papers together, and bundled
them away in a corner quickly and with
an affrighted air. Ho was therefore doing
something secret, which means something
wicked. What could it be?
“Little he thinks," said the fugleman,
“that Master Ralph is sure to come homo
and confound his knavish tricks, and trip
up his heels for him Ah. I think I see
him now. in lace and ruffles and good
broadcloth, walking up the street with a
fine city madam on his arm."
1 should have been very well contented
with the lace ruffles and good broadcloth—
indeed. 1 wanted uothing better—but I
wanted no tine city madam at the mill.
Later on I learned what this thing was
which he took so long to copy, and which
gave him so much anxiety But it was
like a fire ship driven back by the wind
among the vessels of those who sent it
forth
One morning when 1 was busy in the
kitchen with household work, anti my
mother was engaged upon the family sew
ing, Mathew came and begged to have
some conversation with her He said that,
first of all. he was fully acquainted with
her circumstances, and the unhappy out
look before her. when my grandmother
should die aud leave us all without any
income at all, that, being of a compas
sionate heart, he was strongly minded to
help them; and that the best way. as well
a.s he coirid j udge. would be to make her
daughter Drusilla his wife This done,
he would then See that their later yeai-3
would lx? attended with comfort aud the
relief of all anxiety
At first my mother did not reply She
had no reason to love Mathew, whoso un
kindness to his ward was well known to
her Again, she had still some remains
of family pride left —you do not destroy a
woman s pride by taking away her money
She thought, being the daughter of a well
to do Loudon citizen, that her child should
look higher than a man who had nothing
in the world of his own but thirty acres
of land, although he lived at the mill and
pretended to be its owner And she very
truly thought that the man was not in per
son likely to attract so young a girl as my
self But she spoke him fair She told
him that f was young as yet. too young
to know rny own mind, and that perhaps
he hatl better wait lie replied that he
was not young, for his own part, and that
he would not wait. Then she told him
that she should not, certainly, force tho
inclinations of her daughter, but that she
would speak to me about him.
She opened the subject to me in the
wooing No sooner did I understand
that Mathew had spoken for mo than I
threw myself upon my knees to my moth
er, and implored her with many tears
and protestations not to urge me to ac
cept his suit I declared with vehe
mence, that if there were no other man
in tho world. I could not accept Mathew
durable I reminded her of his behavior
toward Ralph. 1 assured her that I be
lieved him to bo one who tat drinking by
uunseif. and a plotter of evil, a man with
u hardened heart and a dead conscience
Well, my mother shed team with me,
and said that I should not be married
against my will, that Mathew was not a
good man. and that *be would bid him.
not uueourteously. go look elsewhere
This she did. thanking him for the houor
he had proposed
For some reason, perhaps because he did
not really wish to marry me. perhaps be
cause he had not thoroughly laid out the
scheme of marrying me to revenge himself
upon Ralph. Mathew gave me a respite for
the time, though I went in great terror lest
he might pester my mother or myself Per
haps which 1 think more likely, he trusted
to the influence of poverty and privation,
and was contented to wait till these should
make me submissive to his will
However that may be. he said nothing
more concerning love, and continued his
visits to my father, in whose conversation
he took so a pleasure Oh. villain!
Tilings were in this posture, I being in
the greatest anxiety and fear that some
ihing terrible was goiug before long to
hapj>en to us. when a most joyful and un
expected event happened.
It was in the month of May. seven years
since Ralph s flight—like the followers of
Mohammed. I reckoned the years from the
flight—that this event happened.
The event was this, that the fugleman
had a letter sent to him—the first letter
he ever received in his life.
I saw the post boy riding down the
road early in the uftenioon; he passed by
the house of Mr Carnaby, where he somo
times stopped, past our cottage, where he
never stopped because there was nobody
who wrote letters to us, and over the
bridge, his horse’s hoofs clattering under
the old gateway l Kiought he was going
to the vicarage, but he left that on his
right and rode straight up the street,
blowing his horn as he went. 1 wondered,
but had no time to waste in wonder, who
was going t© get a letter In that part of
the town The letter, in fact, was for no
other than the fugleman.
Half an hour later the fugleman, who
had been at work in the garden all the
morning, came down the town again, and
asked me—with respect to her ladyship,
my mother—if I would give him five min
utes’ talk With him was Sailor Nan.
cause the thing was altogether so strange
that he could not avoid tolling her about
it, and she came with him, curious as a
woman, though bold and brave as becomes
an old salt.
“ Tis a strange thing,” said the fugle
man. turning the unopened letter over
and over in his hand; “’tis a strange
thing; here is a letter which tells me 1
know not what—comes from l know not
where l have paid three shillings and
eight pence for it. A great sum. I doubt
[ was a fool It may mean money, and it
may mean loss.”
‘ 'Hero is a'letter.”
•‘Burn it, and ha’ done,” said Sailor
Nan * • *Tis from some land shark. Burn
the letter.'*
“lam 60, or mayhap 70 years of age.
Sixty, I mustla-bo. Yes; sure and certain,
CO Yet never a letter in all my day:;
before. '*
Now. which is very singnlar, not th*
least suspicion in our minds as to the
writer of the letter.
“Is it." 1 asked, “from a cousin or a
brother?"
“Cousin?" he repeated, with the shadow
of a smile across his stiff lips. “Why, l
never had a father or a mother, to say
nothing of a brother or a cousin. When
l first remember anything I was running
in the streets with other boys We stole
our breakfast, we stole our dinner, and
we stole our supper Where are they all
now.those little rog and pickpockets,
my companions? Hanged, I doubt not.
What but hanging can have come to
them? But as for me, by tho blessing of
the Lord. I was enlisted in the Fourteenth
Line, and after a few hundreds taken
mostly by three dozen doses, which now
are neither here nor there, and ane the
making of a lad. I was (logged into a
good soldier, and so rose as was due to
merit A hearty three dozen, now and
then, laid on with a will in tho cool of the
morning, works miracles. Not such a
regiment in the service as the Fourteenth
And why? Because the colonel knew his
duty and did it without fear or favor, and
the men were properly trounced. Good
comrades all. and brave boys. And
where are they? Dead, I take it; beggars,
some, fallen m action, some; broke, some,
Lu comfortable berths, like me, some. If
all were living, who would there be to
send me a letter, seeing there wasn’t a
man in ail the regiment who could write?”
Strange that uot one of us even then
guessed the truth.
It was a great letter, thick and care
fully sealed, addressed to “Fugleman Fur
long, at his room in the Castle of Wark
worth, Northumberland, England.” It
came from foreign parts, and the paper
was not only stained, but had a curious
fragrance.
I broke the seal and tore open the cov
ering of the letter Within was another
packet Oh. heavens! It was addressed
to “Drusilla Lletherington, care of the
fugleman, to be forwarded without delay.
Haste—post haste!”
And then I knew without waiting to
open the letter that it would be from none
other than Ralph It must be from Ralph.
After all these years, we were to hear once
more from Ralph. I stood pale and tremfc
ling, nor could t for some moments even
speak At lost I said
“Fugleman—Nan—this letter is ad
dressed to me It is. I verily believe, from
Ralph Embleton. Wait a little, while I
read It "
"Read it — read It!** cried the old man.
Could I— ah' merciful heaven— could I
ever forget the rapture, the satisfied
yearning, the blissful content, the grati
tude. with which l read that sweet and
precious letter? They waited patiently;
even the rude and coarse old woman re
frained from speech while I read page
after page They said nothing though
they saw the tears falling down my face,
because they knew that they were tears
of happiness.
After seven long years my Ralph was
talking to nie as he used to talk I knew
his voice. I recognized his old imperious
way. I saw that ho had not changed As
if he would ever change.'
When I had finished and dried ray tears
they begged me to read his letter to them.
TO BS CONTINUED.
YOUR EARS
Ought to have attention perhaps. If
so, B. B. B. will do you good, removing
all ignorant matter, the direct cause of
deafness. Witness the following testi
monies:
COULD HFf.N H A TICK CRAWL.
Mr. C. E. Hall wrote from Shelby, Ala ,
Febuary 9, 1887: “I could not hear it
thunder. I heard of B. B. 8.. used tvyo
bottles, and now can hear a tick crawl in
the leaves.
“i G'AVF UP TO DIE.”
Knoxville, Tenx., July 2,1887
I had catarrh of the head for six years.
I went to a noted doctor and he treated
me for it, out could not cure me, lie said.
I was over fifty years old and gave up to
die. I had a distressing cough; my eyes
were swollen and 1 am confident I could
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and gotone bottle of your medicine, used
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sufferers. Mrs. Matilda Nichols,
22 Florida Street.
A PREACHER CURED OF DYSPEPSIA.
Miccosukee, Fla., Leon Cos., July 20,’86.
I have been a sufferer from indigestion
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duced by my friends to try your B. B. B.
received no relief, but since using it have
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ing you will forward to my address your
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evidence of cures. Send at earliest date.
Rev. Rob’t C.
A BOOK OF WONDERS, FREE.
All who desire full information about
the cause and cure of Blood Poisons,
Scrofula and Scrofulous Swellings, Ulcers,
Sores, Rheumatism, Kidney Complaints,
Catarrh, etc., can secure by mail, free, a
copy of our 32-page Illustrated Book of
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Address, Blood Balm Cos.,
9 6-lm Atlanta, Ga.
Calender and Weather Fore
casts for 1889, by Rev. Irl R. Hicks, with
explanations of the “Great Jovian
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Write plainly your Name, Post Oflie and
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Cos., St. Louis, Mo.
y *pepsia, Despair, Death.
These are the actual steps which follow
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In cases of Fever and Ague, the blood
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You will have no use for spectacles if
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Exposure to rough weather, getting
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To the Consumers of Oils.
We handle all kinds of lubricating and
machinery oils, and are manufacturers’
agents and can offer specia inducements
in this line, either by the gallon or barrel,
Very respectfully,
J. R- Wikle & Cos.
Their ISusi es Booming.
Probably no one thing has caused such
a general revival of trade at Wikle's Drug
Store as their giying away to their custo
mers of so many free trial bottles of Dr.
King’s New Discovery for Consumption.
Their trade is simply enormous in t his
very v a liable article from the fact that it
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and all throat and lung diseases quickly
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Every bottle wairanted. 3
Is Consumption Incurable?
Read the following: Mr. 0 A. Morris,
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my third' bottle, and able-to oversee the
wora on my farm. It is the finest medi
cine ever made.” 5