VINCENT'S HISTORY.
"Rose and Vincent were legally married by the Rev. Mr. Lehmann, a few miles from the boarding-school where Vincent first saw Rose. Vincent took her from thence immediately to the hotel, where his friend, the Rev. Mr. Lehmann, was staying for a few days previous to his departure for the Continent. The rector's brother, who was with him, was the witness to the ceremony.
"Rose and Vincent then left for a few days' sojourn in a neighboring city. There Vincent received intelligence of the dying condition of his aged father. As his father had been unapprised of his sudden marriage, he thought it not best to take Rose with him at such a time;—providing, therefore, every thing necessary for her comfort, and expecting to be gone at farthest but a few days, he took a reluctant leave of her—he little thought for how long a time.
"Part of the journey lay off from the regular public conveyances; and Vincent, being anxious to return to Rose as soon as possible, hesitated not, though the road was lonely, to perform it at night on horseback. On this night he was met by a gang of desperados, who, unknown to him, herded in the vicinity, and who attacked him and left him for dead, after possessing themselves of his watch, pocket-book, and papers. There he was found the next day, by a passing traveler, in an insensible state, and taken to the nearest farm-house. He was quite unable to give any account of himself; and not wishing to be burdened with the care of him, they put him into a cart and took him to the county poor-house. Here his sufferings, aggravated by neglect, assumed the form of brain fever, and from thence, after awhile, he was removed to the lunatic asylum, where he remained for a year without any symptoms of returning reason.
"His distress, when he finally became conscious of the length of time which had elapsed since he left Rose, was too much for his weak frame. A relapse ensued, and for months longer he vibrated between life and death.
"When consciousness again returned, though weakened in body and enfeebled in mind, he commenced his weary search for Rose. He could hear nothing except that part of her story which he gleaned from Mrs. Bond, and which only served to aggravate his distress. Since then he has traveled unceasingly in steamboats, railroad cars, and stages; haunted hotels, haunted villages, and loitered trembling in churchyards. There is no misery like suspense, and acting upon an already enfeebled frame, it sapped the very fountains of life, and reduced him so fearfully as to render him quite unable to bear the sudden shock of joy which so unexpectedly met him."
"Poor Vincent!" exclaimed John; "and I have grudged him his happiness."
"Dear John!"
"Where was Charley born, Gertrude?"
"In a Lying-in Hospital; in which poor Rose took refuge when the sorrowful hour drew near.
"Then," said Gertrude, resuming her story, "Rose's husband had a cousin of the same name as himself, extravagant, reckless, and dissipated, who, though only twenty-five, had run through a handsome property, inherited in his own right from his grandmother, besides making unreasonable demands upon the paternal purse-strings. The old gentleman at last remonstrated, and the young man's affairs being even worse than he had dared to represent, he became desperate and unscrupulous.
"The father of Rose's husband, who, spite of the profligacy of his nephew, cherished a warm attachment for him, had willed him his property, in case of his son's death. This the young spendthrift was aware of, and when he first heard of the old gentleman's illness, he planned with three desperados to murder his cousin, and remove the only obstacle to his immediate possession of the fortune."
"How was this discovered?" asked John.
"It was revealed by one of the gang on his deathbed, though not until after the instigator had met his own doom at the hands of a woman whom he had betrayed and deserted."
"Then," said John, after a pause, "Rose and her husband have no immediate means of support. It is happiness to know that I can be of service even now."
"But Vincent is not a man to incur such an obligation," said his sister, "enfeebled as he is."
"He must—he shall," said the generous John, "at least till he is stronger and better able to substantiate his claim to what is rightfully his own; he may get even more than his own," said John, "when the old lady in New Orleans finds out that he is the father of the beautiful child she fancied so much; the family likeness must have been well handed down in Charley's face."
"That is not strange," said Gertrude; "cases have occurred in which the family likeness, after having been apparently wholly obliterated, has re-appeared in the third or fourth generation."
"Well, Vincent's story passes belief," said John; "truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction."
