And when I returned, at last, to the East, and went once more to visit my near and dear friends in Ontario County, I was received as one who had come back from the dead. When I had been here a few weeks, and had communicated to my cousins so much of the story of my life as I then thought advisable, I took good counsel and finally did what I ought to have done long years before. I commenced proper legal proceedings for a divorce from my first and worst wife. I do not need to dwell upon the particulars; it is enough to say, that the woman, who was then living, so far from opposing me, aided me all she could, even making affidavit to her adultery with the hotel clerk at Bainbridge, long ago, and I easily secured my full and complete divorce. Now I was, indeed, a free man—all the other wives whom I had married, or who had married me, whether I would or no, were as nothing; some were dead and others were again married. It may be that this new, and to me strange sense of freedom, legitimate freedom, set me to thinking that I might now secure a genuine and true wife, who would make a new home happy to me as long as we both should live.
Fortune, not fate now, followed me, led me rather and guided my footsteps. It was not many months before I met a woman who seemed to me in every way calculated to fill the first place in that home which I had pictured as a final rest after all my woes and wanderings. From mutual esteem our acquaintance soon ripened into mutual love. She was all that my heart could desire. I was tolerably well off; my position was reputable; my connections were respectable. To us, and to our friends, the match seemed a most desirable one. It was no hasty courtship; we knew each other for months and learned to know each other well; and with true love for each other, we had for each other a genuine respect. I frankly told her the whole story of my life as I have now written it. She only pitied my misfortunes, pardoned my errors, and, one bright, golden, happy autumn day, we were married.
In the northeastern part of the State of New York on the banks of a broad and beautiful river, spread out far and near the fertile acres of one of the finest farms in the country. It is well stocked and well tilled. The surrounding country is charming—game in the woods, and fish in the streams afford abundant sport, and the region is far away from large cities, and remote even from railroads. I do not know of a more delightful place in the whole world to live in. On the farm I speak of, a cottage roof covers a peaceful, happy family, where content and comfort always seem to reign supreme. A noble woman, a most worthy wife is mistress of that house; joyous children move and play among the trees that shade the lawns; and the head of the household, the father of the family, is the happiest of thee group.
That farm, that family, that cottage, that wife, that happy home are mine—all mine. I have found a true wife and a real home at last.
My story is told; and if it should suggest to the reader the moral which is too obvious to need rehearsal, one object I had in telling the story will have been accomplished.
THE END.