Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1875 — ROBERT’S WIFE. [ARTICLE]

ROBERT’S WIFE.

BY T. ANNIE FROST.

“I am so sorry about Uncle James!” There was real sorrow in Robert Franklin’s voice and eyes as he spoke, ana the lady who listened drew her merry, saucy face into dolorous puckers to suit the occasion. “ Because, you see,” continued Robert, “he fancies because you have $20,000 that you are a fine lady, affected and useless, not the wife for a poor farmer.” “We must show him his mistake,” was the reply. “ But he will not see you. He positively forbids your Coming over to the farm.” “ Does—does he know we are married?” “ I have not dared to tell him. Cowardly, is it not? But he is my only relative, and I love him dearly. It is not because he owns the farm and can leave a little money, Daisy ” “ Hush, love, I know,” Daisy answered, putting a soft, white hand over her husband’s lips. “T have had no other father, or mother either, for that matter, in all my life,” continued Robert, “ and if the farm is dreary, it is home.”. “ And you do not like to be banished! Well, if you will keep your promise and send J ane over to see me you shall not be. Now talk of something else. Oh, •how can I let you go for two long months!” For Robert Franklin had undertaken to go in person -to see about some Western lands in which his uncle had invested, and which threatened to involve him in loss. Daisy could not well take the long journey, and besides Daisy had other schemes in her wise little head. Loving Robert well, she resolved to remove the only shadow from his life—the resolute opposition of his uncle to a finelady wife.

Robert Franklin had been gone from the farm three days when his Uncle James yielded most reluctantly to the pangs of his old enemy, chronic rheumatism, and told Jane,jhis only servant, that he must remain in his room. The . old woman answered promptly: “ If you are going to be laid up, Mr. Franklin, X must have some help. I’m getting old, too, sir, and dotting up and down stairs isn’t so easy as it was twenty years ago!” “ But who will come, Jane? Girls are not plenty here, as you know.” “ I’ve a niece, sir, would come to me, though she’s never lived out.” “ Send for her, then, and—oh! nib my leg, will you!” Late in the afternoon a little bustle be-low-stairs told the invalid of the arrival of the niece. She came with one trunk in a wagon from the railway station, and, standing in the wide, dreary-looking kitchen, looked a picture of healthful beauty. Soft brown curls gathered in a rich knot lett little crinkly ringlets on forehead and caressing the round white throat; large brown eyes lighted a sweet, fair face, and the neat dress of blue woolen covered a dainty figure. “Will you go up-stairs, Miss ?” Jane hesitated. “Margaret!” said the new-comer; “ don’t call your niece Mias, whatever you do. My name is Margaret. Has Mr. Franklin had his supper?” “ Not yet. There’s his dinner, you s&e, scarcely tasted." Margaret looked at the big tray, the blue plate with food heaped upon it, the two-pronged fork and haif-soi led napkin, and did not wonder at the neglected food. “ Show me where things are and I will get the supper,” she said. Jane led her from closet to closet. In one was a set of gilt-edged china, some fine table linen, tableauver and glass. “ Those were bought thirty years ago,” Jane whispered, “when Mr. Franklin expected to be married. She died and thev’ve never been used. ” With her pretty face saddened by the hidden tragedy of those few words Margaret took a small tray from the shelf, and covering it with a snowy napkin selected what she wanted from the closet and went again to the kitchen. James Franklin, weary with the effort to hold a book in his aching hands, was now sitting in a deep arm-chair musing when Margaret tapped at the door. “ Come in!” • But he started as she obeyed. Such a

sweet, bright face was new in the dismal old farm-house, strongly in contrast with the bare, meager room and desolate air surrounding her. “I have brought your supper,” she said, drawing a little table near to the arm-chair and covering it with a white cloth. Then, going tq the door, she entered again with a tray. Upon a white china dish was half a chicken, delicately browned, a potato roasted in the ashes and a slice of buttered toast; and beside this a delicate cup full of fragrant tea. “You must not scold if I have anything wrong,” said a clear, sweet'voice, “ because Aunt Jane is too busy to look after me. I cleaned the fork and spoon, for silver gets dreadfully black”—then more tenderly, as she marked the painful effort to move the tortured fingers—- “ Let me cut the chicken, sir.” Grimly wondering, the old man suffered himself to be fed, finding appetite as the well-prepared food was eaten, and listening well pleased to the cheery voice so unfamiliar in his lonely life. “Jane,” Margaret said, setting down the tray in the kitchen again, “I don’t wonder he is sick. No carpet, no curtains, that great hearse of a bed, and nothing pretty near him.” “ It’s all clean," said Jane. “Clean as wax, but oh! so doleful. Can’t we fix up a cosy room?” “ There’s rooms enough. Six on that floor,” said Jane, “ and none used but the one Mr. Franklin’s in, and Mr. Robert’s the little one next to it.” “ Well, we’ll see to-morrow. Can I have a man to send to town if I want anything?” “ There’s men enough. Will you sleep down here to-night, or in one of the rooms up-stairs??” “ Down here in the room next yours.” “ It’s all ready. ITI-go up now and make Mr. Franklin comfortable for the night” — : = “Comfortable!” Margaret said, ingBut the next morning, after putting a tempting breakfast before the invalid, Margaret selected the vacant bedroom she meant to beautify for his use. It was large, with four windows, light and cheerful, and well suited to her purpose. In the intervals of directing Jane, sending the man to town with her orders and giving her own dainty touch to everything Margaret visited the invalid, reading to him, chatting with him, and making the long hours fly by. It was late in the afternoon when she came in to say: “ Mr. Franklin, the room across the hall has a southern exposure, and I think you will find it more comfortable than this one. Will you try to get there if Aunt Jane and I help you?” “ I’m very well here.” “ But you will be better there. Please come.”

So he yielded, but once fairly in the room could not repress a cry of amazement. Softly-carpeted, white-curtained, a bright fire crackling in the stove, a dainty supper spread upon the table, the room was cosy and cheery enough to coax a smile from the grimmest lips. Yet when James Franklin sank into the bright, chintz-covered easy-chair and looked around him everything was strangely familiar. That was the parlor carpet, taken from the never-opened room below, those were the parlor curtains, freshly ironed and starched and held back with knots of broad ppink ribbon. The bed, bureau, wardrobe, chairs, all were his own, polished till they shone again. The snowy bed-linen, the white counterpane, the bureau covers with their knotted fringe were all his sister’s work, stored away in chests since she died, long, long years ago. Even the chintz on the chair was part of some old curtains he had stuffed away in a longforgotten corner of a closet. “ It is very comfortable, and you are a good, thoughtful girl,” he said, looking round with a keen appreciation of the added comfort. “I wonder we never thought of using these things.” “ Now let me read the rest of our book to you. 1 have some new periodicals in my trunk if you will look at them.” The days flew by, cold weather strengthening, till Robert wrote he was coming home one chill January day. Margaret had been busy for a fortnight before in the lower part of the house, but Mr. Franklin asked no questions: He had been very ill, but was recovering, so that he hoped to welcome Robert in the sitting-room. How he shrank from returning to its dreariness and sending Mafgaret away, he told no one till he held his nephew’s hand fast clasped in his own.

“ I can never tell you, Robert,” he said then, “ what Margaret has been to me. No daughter could have tended me mere patiently and faithfully, and when I could listen she read to me, and talked as pleasantly as if I were a companion to her, instead of a grumpy old bachelor past sixty.” “ I am glad you have been well cared for,” Robert said, turning his head to hide a merry twinkle in his eyes; “ you look very fine here!” But when he carefully led the old man to the sitting-room, both stood amazed. Was the handsomely-carpeted, cheer-fully-furnished room the dreary old place in which they had been so well contented? While they wondered a new sound greeted them —the tones of a piano touched by skilled fingers, and a voice sweet and clear singing a song of welcome. Throwing open a door to disclose a beautifully-furnished parlor, Robert saw also a little figure on the piano stool, clad in a shining black silk, with soft lace and pretty jewelry to adorn it. “ Margaret !” Uncle James cried. But Robert said softly: “Margaret Franklin, Uncle James. Daisy, my wife!” Then she came forward with shining eyes. -—■■ “ I wanted to make you love me,” she said in a low, tender voice, “ for Robert’s sake!” “ And for your own,” he answered; “ but lam bewildered, my dear. Where did these fine things come from?” “ From my old home. They are all mint, and you will let them stay here, will you not, for our new home?” she added, shyly slipping her hand into Rob ert’s. “ I don’t want to take Robert from you. Uncle James, when he is all you have to love, but, if you will give me a place here too I will try to- be a good daughter to you.” “ Give you a place here!” the old man cried; “I think no greater grief could come to me now, Margaret, than the thought of losing you. God ever bless you, child! for lew at your 'age would have cared to so kindly overcome ah obstinate old man’s stupid prejudices.” “ Thank you,” she whispered, touching her lips to his for the first lime; “you have made me very happy.” \ And as she presided over thelarefullyappointed table in a cosily-furnished

dining-room Uncle James had used for spare harness and bags of grain, but which was transformed beyond recognition, there was no cloud on the brightness of the face of Robert’s wife.