One by one they had died, and been
buried beside their parents in a little town in the Middle West.
There was only one sister left, the baby, Lucy. On her the older
girl had lavished all the love of an impulsive and emotional
nature. When Anne, the elder, was thirty-two and Lucy was
nineteen, a young man had come to the town. He was going east,
after spending the summer at a celebrated ranch in Wyoming--one
of those places where wealthy men send worthless and dissipated
sons, for a season of temperance, fresh air and hunting. The
sisters, of course, knew nothing of this, and the young
man's ardor rather carried them away. In a word, seven years
before, Lucy Haswell had married a young man whose name was given
as Aubrey Wallace.
Anne Haswell had married a carpenter in her native town, and was
a widow. For three months everything went fairly well. Aubrey
took his bride to Chicago, where they lived at a hotel. Perhaps
the very unsophistication that had charmed him in Valley Mill
jarred on him in the city. He had been far from a model husband,
even for the three months, and when he disappeared Anne was
almost thankful. It was different with the young wife, however.
She drooped and fretted, and on the birth of her baby boy, she
had died. Anne took the child, and named him Lucien.
Anne had had no children of her own, and on Lucien she had
lavished all her aborted maternal instinct. On one thing she was
determined, however: that was that Aubrey Wallace should educate
his boy.
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