Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1891 — UNCLE RUBEN'S LOST LOVE. [ARTICLE]

UNCLE RUBEN'S LOST LOVE.

Hartford Couraat My Uncle Ruben Van Note fell in love with Priscilla Jan the very first time, and as he was not the kind of a man to waste much time in courting, he chose this way of proposing: Priscilla wore a gown of muslin, and at the belt hung two scarlet pockets, as was the custom in those days. Ruben having penned a declaration one afternoon, he took the opportunity (for he was a timid man) of slipping the note into one of these trim little pockets when she was not looking. Then he took his leave and waited anxiously but very patiently for an answer. But none ever came. Poor Ruben was not one to risk his fate a second time, and he ceased his visits to the home c*f the Jans. After a while he went away to England and Newport knew him no more. He tssswne ratherCelebfsEod as a scientific man. The bashfulness of youth gone by, he became a grave,* gallant S tiemen of the old school, and he his admirers even among our sex, but he never fell in love and he never married. At sixty-five years of age ho took it into his headtp see Newport before he died. In those years it had become a fashionable watering place. There were one or two great hotels and pleuty of cottages. The sea view was as fine, air as bracing, the girls as pretty as of yore, but they did not wear painted’ muslin with poppies on them, nor outside Dockets of handsomely embroidered silk. Ruben Van Note strolled along the beach and looked at the old tower and sighed over the past a little. Then lie strolled the street to the house of the Jan family. It looked very much as form erly, on Iyth o trees were larger and the ivy vine quite covered the brick stable with the pigeon..houses on the roof. All its windows were open and a woman was dusting the shutters. When she came out upon the porch to shake a cloth ho spoke to her. “Does any of the Jan family live here yet?” he asked. The woman gave a long shako of her head and said: “The last of the Jan family died three days ago —Miss Priscilla Jan. I was her maid. She was getting on in life-sixty years a delicate body always; but I think she would have lived a long time yet if she hadn’t had an accident. Her carriage was upset by a tipsy coachman and she was hurt and shaken; The shock to her nerves killed her, the doctor said. That's her miniature when she was a girl, over the -inantel, if you’d step in and look.” Ruben stepped in and saw Priscilla, in white and red. smiling at him from the chimney piece. It was a good likeness. Could she really bo dead? lie staggered ba k and seated himself on the sofa. “And she never married?” he said, speaking aloud unconsciously.

“No, sir," said the maid, believing herself addressed. “She never married. Such a pretty girl, you'd hot believe it. She had offers* but they did not suit her. Once she told me, sitting just there, sir, where you sit, the Christmas after her parents died, why they did not. She was fond of a young gentleman once, but he camo and went and never said a word, and. as she believed, never eared for her. She cried and cried of n V-*ts, hut told no one. and she lired single until she was forty. Then one day, when she was up in the garret, she found a pair of red silk pockets in an old box. She had missed the pockets. They used to wear 'em outside, sir, which seems funny now. She had missed them, and never guessed where they’d gone, but somehow they'd been dropped into the bgx that was carried up garret that vbry night. She'd not seen them for twenty years, and she took them out and turned them over, and a tetter fell into her lap. “It was sealed, and it had her name ■on it. and when sheread it she found it was an offer of marriage from this young gentleman. An offer, sir, that she., would have said yes to, and thankful. “She knew then that, being bashful, he had slipped it into her pocket and it had been lost with it. “ T cried at first, Martha,’ she said, ‘but afterward I was glad, for I knew how we had loved each other. 14. was too late to answer it, oven if J had known where, he was; but I hoj»ed sometime he might-come back and know the truth. He never will know now, Martha," she said, “unless we meet in heaven." “And I put the little pockets, with she letter in them, under her head in the coffin, as she bade me. Sort of like a stoiy, isn't it, sir?" “It is very like a story," said my great-uncle. He sat looking at the picture for a while, and the girl went on. The property was left to a charity, all but a legacy to herself, and there was to be an auction next day, and she was ‘Cleaning up for it. And thea she begged him to rest himself as long as he pleased, and went about her work., • - When she had gone Ruben Van Note took the miniature of poor Priscilla Jan from the mantlepiece and put it into his bosom, and walked away. Doubtless the maid wondered long whether that respectable old gentleman could have been the thief, or whether some other had come in at the open door in her absence. 7 , But Priscilla’s pretty face day against Ruben s heart until it ceased to beat; and I have no doubt that if lovers renew their vows in heaven.

these two hearts have met there; these two whom the treacherous buckle of the scarlet pockets parted forever on earth.