WOMAN HERMIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11520, 3 November 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

WOMAN HERMIT.

LIFELONG VIGIL FOR LOVE. LIVES UNSEEN BY NEIGHBOURS IN: - HER LONELY HOME. Bhidgetox, N.Y., September 19.—Love made Rebecca Newcomb a hermit, but it was love betrayed. She died a few days ago at Newcombtown, where for twenty years she had remained indoors, isolated from all the world. It was no hovel that she turned into a cloister for meditation on the faithlessness of man. She had property of her own, and might have spent the loveless years in travel,, amusement, study, social diversion. In her girlhood she was the belle of Newcombtown, with the fortunes of which her family had been closely identified for generations. She was the daughter of "the squire," and even if she had not been beautiful would have been a personage of the first consideration. At school she was adored by all the boys and envied by all the girls. It is said that the schoolmaster himself secretly worshipped at her shrine. There was nothing of the coquette about her. In earliest girlhood she bestowed her affections on Willie Riley, the handsomest, sturdiest, brightest boy in the school, beloved of all the girls. Willie accepted her homage in a gracious spirit, and they grew up in the same sentimental relation. Rebecca's parents encouraged the youth, and everybody believed that a wedding was in sight. What happened to prevent it no one but the two most concerned ever knew. It was Riley who broke the engagement. He went away from Newcombtown, and is now an influential citizen in an Eastern city. Rebecca Newcomb made no confidences in her sorrow. Inquiries of parents and friends were met with stubborn silence. It was a nine days' wonder, but the village found something else to talk' about, and the hermit was accepted as a local instution. The butcher and baker grew accustomed to her ways. They did not attempt to hold any personal communication with her. When she needed anything she wrote the order and left it on a bench by the gate, weighted so that it would not blowaway. There, too, the money was found. When anything was to be delivered the boy rang the bell and left his packages at the gate. Not till she was sure he had gone would Miss Newcomb, her head muffled in a shawl, appear for an instant to take possession of her supplies. Poor, wasted, harmless old soul, she mourned to death, a slow suicide. Now she is in her grave, and the old house, together with her income, fails to the share of her brother, who had not seen her for twenty yewit *•;.•"' ;/;'. ■■* " * "