Wives and Widows; or, The Broken Life. Ann S. Stephens

Wives and Widows; or, The Broken Life - Ann S. Stephens


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       CHAPTER XLIX. LOTTIE SEEMS TREACHEROUS.

       CHAPTER L. CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE WIDOW AND MRS. LEE.

       CHAPTER LI. THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

       CHAPTER LII. THE FATAL LETTER.

       CHAPTER LIII. DEATH IN THE TOWER-CHAMBER.

       CHAPTER LIV. MRS. LEE'S FUNERAL.

       CHAPTER LV. OLD MRS. BOSWORTH'S VISIT.

       CHAPTER LVI. LOTTIE'S REVELATIONS.

       CHAPTER LVII. MRS. DENNISON URGES LAWRENCE TO PROPOSE.

       CHAPTER LVIII. AFTER THE PROPOSAL.

       CHAPTER LIX. A HEART-STORM ABATING.

       CHAPTER LX. THE TWO LETTERS.

       CHAPTER LXI. THE DEPARTING GUEST.

       CHAPTER LXII. WHOLLY DESERTED.

       CHAPTER LXIII. OLD-FASHIONED POLITENESS.

       CHAPTER LXIV. NEWS FROM ABROAD.

       CHAPTER LXV. LOTTIE LEAVES A LETTER AND A BOOK.

       CHAPTER LXVI. MRS. DENNISON'S JOURNAL.

       CHAPTER LXVII. OUR FIRST VISITOR.

       CHAPTER LXVIII. THE WATERFALL.

       CHAPTER LXIX. THE THREATENED DEPARTURE.

       CHAPTER LXX. THE MIDNIGHT WALK.

       CHAPTER LXXI. AWAY FROM HOME.

       CHAPTER LXXII. OUT IN THE WORLD AGAIN.

       CHAPTER LXXIII. FIRST WIDOWHOOD.

       CHAPTER LXXIV. LOTTIE'S LETTER.

       CHAPTER LXXV. LOTTIE IN PARIS.

       CHAPTER LXXVI. THE CASKET OF DIAMONDS.

       CHAPTER LXXVII. ALL TOGETHER AGAIN.

       Table of Contents

       LEAVING MY HOME.

       Table of Contents

      At ten years of age I was the unconscious mistress of a heavy stone farm-house and extensive lands in the interior of Pennsylvania, with railroad-bonds and bank-stock enough to secure me a moderate independence. I shall never, never forget the loneliness of that old house the day my mother was carried out of it and laid down by her husband in the churchyard behind the village. The most intense suffering of life often comes in childhood. My mother was dead; I could almost feel her last cold kisses on my lip as I sat down in that desolate parlor, waiting for the guardian who was expected to take me from my dear old home to his. The window opened into a field of white clover, where some cows and lambs were pasturing drowsily, as I had seen them a hundred times; but now their very tranquillity grieved me. It seemed strange that they would stand there so content, with the white clover dropping from their mouths, and I going away forever. My mother's canary-bird, which hung in the window, began to sing joyously over my head, as if no funeral had passed from that room, leaving its shadows behind, and, more grievous still, as if it did not care that I might never sit and listen to it again.

      One of the neighbors had kindly volunteered to take charge of the gloomy old house till my guardian came, but her presence disturbed me more than funereal stillness would have done. I had a family of dolls up stairs, and any amount of tiny household furniture, which I would have given the world to take with me; but this thrifty neighbor protested against it. She said that I was almost a young lady and must forget such childish things, now that I was going into the world to be properly educated.

      To a shy, sensitive child, this was enough. So, with a double sense of bereavement, I saw my pretty dolls and delicate toys swept into a basket and carried off to the woman's house, between two stout Irish girls, who seemed to be taking my heart off with them.

      In less than half an hour one of this woman's children came down the road with my prettiest doll under her arm. Its flaxen curls were all disordered, and its tiny feet, with their slippers of rose-colored kid, had evidently been in the mud, where she had probably insisted on making the doll walk. While I sat by the window, waiting and watching, this bare-headed little girl sat down by a fragment of stone that had fallen from the wall close by, and began pounding the head of my doll upon it with all her might. A cry broke from me that made the little wretch start and run away, leaving my poor mutilated doll by the stone.

      I ran out, seized upon my ruined doll, and came back to the house, crying over it in bitter grief. With trembling hands I unlocked my trunk, which was ready packed for travelling, and laid my broken treasure down among the most precious of my belongings. Just then Mrs. Pierce, our neighbor, came in, and in a half jeering, half kind way, expostulated with me for being such a little goose as to cry over a doll. This woman did not mean to be hard with me; far from it. Persons exist who are really kind-hearted, and seem cruel only because they cannot comprehend feelings utterly unknown to themselves. To me that doll was a type of my wrecked home; to her it was a combination of wax, sawdust, and leather, which a few dollars could at any time replace; besides that, she was put a little on the defensive by the fault of her child.

      While she reasoned with me in her coarse kindness, which only wounded me deeper, a carriage had driven up, and two persons entered through the outer door, which had been left open by the little girl when she ran


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