W." A gentleman hastily alighted, and was also
observed through the darkness of the evening to examine the casing of
the door, and then return to the chaise and drive rapidly away.
The opinion was, by those who were cognizant of the fact, that this was
a secret, preconcerted sign by which the lover should recognize the
place of her retreat; and being too faintly drawn, through the darkness
of the night he failed to discover the characters.
From this time, however, the spirits of the stranger evidently sunk; and
in two weeks more birth and death had followed each other, and the grave
had closed over all.
This stranger had, in her peculiar situation, tenderly won upon the
sympathies of a few kind-hearted individuals who had made their way to
her, one of whom, a Mrs. Southwick, lived directly opposite the Bell
Tavern. These were with her in her last great agony, in which all sense
of guilt was lost in pity. Mrs. S. has related that no word of complaint
or accusation was heard to fall from her lips, while the spirit seemed
brightening with an unearthly hope, till what was charming in life was
indescribably lovely in death. Thus they laid the beautiful stranger in
the saintly robes of the sepulchre without censure and without
accusation, not knowing how painfully she was mourned and missed, as a
star shut out of vision by clouds and storm, in the home of her
childhood and in the heart of a widowed mother.
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