Love's bitterest cup

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

And so the last weeks of April passed and May was on hand.

Letters from Le came by every Californian mail.

He had reached St. Sebastian; he had found the Rev. Father Minitree; he had searched the parish register; found the marriage between Angus Anglesea and Ann Maria Wright duly recorded, signed and witnessed; he had hunted out the living witnesses, and he had procured attested copies of the marriage record, further indorsed by the written and sworn statements of the officiating priest and of the surviving witnesses. And so, with evidence as strong as evidence could be, he wrote that he was ready to come home, only that he wished to oblige Mrs. Anglesea by going out to Wild Cats’ Gulch to inquire after her boys. The journey there and back, he thought, might occupy him four days. After that he should start for home, which he hoped to reach about the fifteenth of May.

Letters also came from the Earl of Enderby in answer to Mrs. Force’s missive that had announced the time of the family’s sailing for Europe—letters saying that the very near prospect and the anticipation of seeing his dear and only sister and her children had made him feel so much better in spirits that his health had improved under it.

Among the most constant visitors at Mondreer was Mr. Sam Grandiere, whose visits could not be mistaken as to their meaning, and whose attentions to Wynnette on all occasions of their meetings in other companies had attracted the observation of the whole neighborhood and caused much talk.

“Mr. Force is such a practical sort of man that so long as he knows young Grandiere comes of a good old Maryland family, and that his character is beyond reproach, he will not mind his roughness of manner or plainness of speech, or his want of a collegiate education, or refuse him his daughter on that account,” said young Dr. Ingle to his wife one evening when they were talking over the affair.

“No, perhaps not; but how could our brilliant Wynnette ever fancy such a lout!” exclaimed Natalie, indignantly.

“Oh, indeed, you are too severe on the poor fellow! And you, coming from the North, do not understand our Maryland ways. In your State it is the farmers’ boys who are sent to school and college in preference to the girls, if any are to go; but in Maryland it is always the farmers’ girls who are put to boarding school in preference to the boys; as in your State you find learned statesmen, lawyers and clergymen belonging to families of very plainly educated women, so in our State you will find refined and accomplished women in the same families with very plain, simply schooled men. It is queer, but it is so. Our Maryland men will make any sacrifice, even that of their own mental culture, in order to educate their women, and I think in that they show the very spirit of generosity.”

But among all the people who observed and criticized the growing intimacy between Wynnette and young Grandiere, none was more interested than quaint little Rosemary Hedge.

Rosemary was poetic, romantic and sentimental to a degree. She was devoted to Wynnette and Elva Force; and she could not bear the idea of Wynnette “throwing herself away” on such a rustic.