Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1892 — All's Well That Ends Well. [ARTICLE]

All's Well That Ends Well.

There is always a. beginning to an end. What it was in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Hicks-Brown I do not pretend to know. What I know most about is the end and the appendix. Of course all the differences leading up to the last act were thoroughly aired in court and in the newspapers; but it was the final act of brutality on Mr. Hicks-Brown’s part that was especially dilated upon, and for weeks this “fiend inhuman form” was execrated by dames and damsels all over this broad land, and Mrs. Ilicks-Ilrown was an object of heartfelt commiseration on all sides. I am inclined to think, that if Mr. Hicks-Brown had been more like the men who are held up as model husbands by the knowing members of certain ladies’ societies, he and Mrs. HicksBrown —she whom only two short years since he had promised to love aDd cherish—would be living in peace and amity, to say nothing of conjugal happiness, even unto this day; and if Mrs. HicksBrown had been anything but the only child of a very rich and foolishly indulgent papa, things might have been different. But Mr. Hicks-Brown was just as much used to having his own way as was his pretty spouse; and the natural result was family rows, more or less insignificant in character. At first Mr. HicksBrown was inclined to give in, just as all dutiful hubbies are ;buthe saw the shoals of trouble on to which this course was causing him. to drift, and concluded, after mature consideration, that it was his will that should dominate in the Hicks-Brown family, and he fixed his plan of procedure and governed his actions accordingly. Mrs. Hicks-Brown, with feminine insight, perceived, at an early stage of the game, what her lord’s intentions were; and, as she had always been accustomed to have her own way, she decided that it was too late to begin knocking under - and there you have what was presumably the beginning of the end. It was a dog—not only a dog, but a young lady dog—not only a female canine, but what Mr.. Hicks-Brown termed a “measly, doggasted pug”—that caused the climax. If there was any creature on earth that Mr. Hicks-Brown loathed and despised it was a pug, and especially one of the gentler sex, and his better half, aware of this antipathy, had, with characteristic feminine perversity, availed herself of the first opportunity to possess herself of one of those interesting animals, which speedily won, it seemed, first place in her affections and made Mr. HiAs-Brown’s life miserable. He stood it, however, as long as he could; but the end had to come. Mr. Hicks-Brown was an architect, and it came to pass that he had, on one occasion, been invited to prepare the plans for a public building. The plans were drawn and accepted by the committee, which, however, returned them to him for certain important alterations, and they were laid on the table in his den to be attended to when he returned home in the late afternoon of a certain

day. Now, it so happened that Vic, the pug aforementioned, was of an inquiring turn of mind, and she chose this very afternoon for an exploring tour in the upper part of the house. When Mr. Hicks-Brown entered his den about 5 o’clock he saw at once that portions of his plans were missing, and, supposing that his wife had taken them to show some visitor, he hurried downstairs. “Where are those plans?" he asked. “What plans, dear?” softly inquired Mrs. Hicks-Brown, sliding her caramel into one cheek and still keeping one eye on a particularly thrilling page of the yellow-back novel in her lap. “What—what plans? Do you mean to say you didn’t take those Calumet building plans from my table?” asked Mr. Hicks-Brown in some agitation. “Oh-h!” said his spouse, mildly surprised. “Why, it must have been those 'Oi&ti VJO •“That—Vic—had!” howled Mr. Hicks “And pray where are they now.” ‘ ‘Don’t get excited, dear. Were they they anything in particular? Vic had some old, soiled pieces of cloth, playing with them awhile ago; but I supposed they were some you had thrown into the wastebasket, so I burned—Henry! What axe you going to do?” . But Henry did not answer. He strode over to the cushion whereon the offending Vic was taking her afternoon siesta, gripped her firmly by the nape of the neck, and, despite his wife’s hysterical protests, opened the door and kicked the howling animal into the street, and, not satisfied with this, when Mrs. HicksBrown would have rushed to rescue her pet, he took her by the shoulders and forced her into a chair, noting with grim satisfaction as he did so that a couple of street arabs were making off with Vic. That day Mrs. Hicks-Brown went home to her mother, and two weeks later she was a member of the divorce colony in a western city, seeking freedom from matrimonial bonds on the ground of “cruel and inhuman treatment,” which she expected the court, when her case was presented, to understand as having been applied to her instead of to Vic. In the state where Mrs. Hicks-Brown sought her divorce, it takes only three months to establish a residence, and the legal formalities consume very little time; but, strange to say, Mrs. HicksBrown did not find it easy to pass the time. The first three or four weeks, in her flurried state of mind, she did not notice—but, after that, time passed very slowly, indeed. Strange as it may seem, life apart from Mr. Hicks-Brown was very, very dull—and lonely. Yes, she had been hasty—too hasty—but there was no turning back now. She had burned her bridges, and besides, had ever a Lovedale retraced a step once taken? No! And she held her pretty nose a little higher and tried to look haughtily don’t-care-ish, all the time feeling very miserable, indeed.

Everything seemed to conspire to add to her load of sorrow. She was pointed out on the street as a “colonist;” and, although she met, through the pastor of tbe church she attended and at the home of her attorney, many of the nicest ale in the city, she was almost enj ignored in a social way and it galled her immeasurably. She, a Lovedale—yes, and a Hicks-Brown: for even if the man who had bestowed the last name on her did work for a liying, it was a name to be proud of—to be ostracized by thase insignificant country jfeople, half the men among whom attended balls in Prince Albert or cut-away coats! The idea! As if shncared! And yet she did care, a great deal. And Mr. Hicks-Brown? He was working away as though fighting time. He never gave himself a moment, if Be could help it, for thought. Not a word had passed between him and the Lovedale family since the day his wife had flung herself out of-the house and returned to her parents. He heard she had gone west for a divorce and it made him wince, but he shut his mouth more tightly and went at his work still harder. There were times when he had to think and they were not pleasant times. There was one in particular. A few months before he had begun to build, unknown to his wife, a handsome new house in her favorite suburb—and the time came for him to occupy it, and she was not there to enjoy it. His younger sister, an orphan, who had just finished school and had come to live with him, was delighted with every thing. She ran all over the house, fairly gushing with pleasure, and did not know that her brother, sitting smid the confusion of furniture in the front hall, was thinking of how much some one else would have been pleased. And there were two big tears on his cheeks when he remembered himself and arose to superintend the work of arranging furniture. Everybody who reads the papers remembers the Hicks-Brown divorce trial —how the defendant paid no attention to the suit; how the judge, in granting a decree without alimony, scored the fair plaintiff for seeking a divorce on jsuch trivial grounds, and assured her that he allowed a decree only because it was plain to be seen that it was a case of incompatibility ; and how two days after receiving her decree, the plaintiff left suddendly, and everybody said, “I told you so—l knew she’d go as soon as she got it.” But everybody doesn’t know that the reason she left so suddenly was that she received a telegram announcing her father’s death, or that when she reached home she found that he had died a bankrupt. Hicks-Brown knew it, and his heart ached with a longing to go to her aid—and then the Hicks-Brown pride came to the surface and his heart hardened with a cold snap and he bent himself to his work harder than ever. One morning, as he rode into town, Henry Hicks-Brown was thinking how lonely his sister must be, sometimes, out there in that slow little suburb, and an idea struck him. “By Jove!”he thought, “it’s the very thing. There are lots of fine girls who would jump at the chance to be companion to so jolly a girl as Lottie.” And he stopped at the Sol office and left a “Want” advertisement, which stated that a young lady desired a companion who was able to speak French and possessed sundry. other accomplishments; must furnish best references; would receive liberal salary, etc. “Apply in person at residence, Grove street.” Mabel Hicks-Brown, discussing ways and means with her mother at their slimly-furnished breakfast table next morning, saw this advertisement. “It’s the very thing, mamma, and I’m going to see about it to-day. Something must be done, and I am the one to do it, so ” “But, Mabel, it seems so—so —why. the idea of ” “There, there’s no use saying a word, mamma. We can’t be choosers any more.” And so it was settled. At 4 o’clock that afternoon Mabel Hicks-Brown rang the door of the house in Grove street indicated in the advertisement and was admitted by a trim maid, who seemed to know her errand, and ushered her into a pretty drawing room on the right. Somehow the room had a familiar look. At least there wene things in it that seemed familiar. That picture in the dark corner—she must have seen it before. She rose to look at it, and as she did so, some one came hurriedly into the room. Tnrning, she stood face to face with Henry Hicks-Brown. . For a full half-minute they stood staring at each other, stunned. Then Mabel, weak from the strain of the weeks and months just passed, gave a shuddering sob and sank to' the floor. Ten minutes later she found herself upon the divan in the corner, with a pair of strong arms about her and a very dear face close to her own, while a deep, tremulous ‘ voice whispered: ‘ ‘Mabel, can’t we—can’t we make it all up? Tell me, little girl.” She told him, right then and there; and half an hour after that they stood in the study of the parsonage close by— Hicks-Brown would have it so—for all the world like a pair of elopers, and what had taken hearly five months to untie wasretied in five minutes. And that was the real end of the celebrated Hicks-Brown divorce case—the part that only a small minority of the newspaperreading public Knows about.— [Argonaut.