THE ABSENT ONE.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 2624, 26 October 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE ABSENT ONE.

A Youthful Inquiry Developed What She Was Doing. In a quiet little home on the west side the gentle and loving father was arranging aU for the night, and as. the little children gathered around his knee to lisp their childish devotions ere he marched them off to bed it was indeed a pretty domestic scene that presents itself to the reader. Softly rocking with his foot the crib where the youngest of, the family, with sweetly parted lips, lay sleeping, the eyes of the fond parent were beaming with that unmatched solicitude which only a parent can show, and as he deftly disrobed the twins and Erepared them for the evening's rest it was eautiful to watch the methodical exactness with which all was done. Experienced in all of the trifling details which make the most perfect guardian of childhood, the kind father's precision and self control were indeed a pleasing sight, and the most careful critic would find it hard ; to any flaws in this home management, wbich is the foundation of all good government and the cornerstone of the best civilization. Indeed nothing seemed to be wanting to make the scene more complete until the seoond twin, with that quick curiosity which oftentimes in children so quaintly betrays itself, even about the most remote and unfamiliar objects, suddenly exclaimed with startling distinctness:' "Papa, where is mamma?" Carefully placing the paregoric bottle back in its accustomed place, the fond father, with the light of a great pride shining in his eyes, his whole face illuminated at the thought of the one being he had been so long accustomed to revere, replied: "Darling, you must not ask for mamma. Tonight sbe is making one of the greatest woman suffrage speeches of her life. "—Life.