A TALK FOR A PRINCE'S CHILDREN.

Waipawa Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 782, 28 May 1885, Page 4

A TALK FOR A PRINCE'S CHILDREN.

jf Some twenty odd years ago there in California a family of three persons, father, mother and daughter. The latter a mere child. All were young. The father was a physician. Unfortunately, lie injured his not very extensive practice by intemperance. Jlis habits became ho dissipated that his poor wife, despairing of his reformation, and also of the possibility of independent action on her own part to secure support for herself and child, proposed a separation. The man agreed to it ; but he was not he put out like Kip Van Winkle. He was assured that while he lived she would

NEVER CEASE TO lIELI* HIM,

and that, when he mended his ways their old relations should be restored, lie departed to cure himself, if possible and become worthy of the woman, who sorely beset, undertook the maintenance of the family. Encouraged by his wife’s prayers, letters and heroic conduct, the doctor redeemed himself. At least he thought so, and liis poor w ife was more than willing to believe it. He returned to her home and heart, warmly welcomed hack to both. Unluckily, he had either miscalculated his will power or the demon of indulgence was simply asleep and not dead within him. He went hack to his cups and very soon the skeleton fingers of poverty was laid upon his domestic affairs. The devoted wife, unwilling to undertake an experimental separation, and unable to remain where she was, determined to try what change of scene would do for the miserable ?wan, who, naturally kind, talented and wlndesotiled seemed to be insanely abandoned to the devil of strong drink, dust at the crisis rumors had reached <’alifornia of the C'omstack lode discovery and thither many of the mining population drifted. Across the ♦Sierras to Virginia City this little and most w retched family journeyed. The doctor pulled himself together for a while and did some business, but his health was gone and VERY SOO.V lIE I) I El). AVidow and orphan were left in the very depths of poverty. The generous miners had clubbed together to bury the doctor. They made up a purse for the mother and child from time to time, and thus saved both from utter privation of food, shelter and raiment. There was at that time, superintendent of one of the mines, a sturdy young I rishman, wiio, from the lowest rounds of the ladder, had begun to push his way to fortune. lie was not then more than moderately well off, and little dreamed of the Monte Cristo casket in store for him. lie used to carry the weekly or monthly stipend to the widow, and his visits to her became more and more frequent. At last he married her, and her days of fear on the score of poverty were over. She possessed a well-to-do husband, who was the master of his possessions, and certain to make his way in the world. But in the days of her distress the unhappy woman had resorted to the morphine habit, and could not, oi her own effort, release herself from it. A young physician at Virginia city, who had recently graduated in France, informed her that if she would visit Paris and put herself implicitly under the care of his old master there

lIER CURE COULD BE GUARANTEED. "While her husband remained to uncover, with the present junior senator from Nevada, the richest silver deposit the world has ever known, the wife crossed the seas and submitted to a rigorous medical treatment. It was successful after many months of endurance. Meanwhile the famous California and Consolidated Virginia mines were penetrated by the husband, and the world renowned Bonanza, of which he was principal owner, made him at least forty times millionaire. The wife in Paris, now perfectly cured and blooming, at once rose into prominence and celebrity, for how could the marvel-loving Parisians help adoring a woman whose talents and beauty were matched by such fabulous wealth so romantically discovered. For years this lady, who is no other than Mrs Mackay, has beet* a silver queen in the

most splendid court of Europe. She has lived in palaces. Noblemen and men of genius have paid court at her shrine.

It is a miraculous bridging of the chasm that lies between the mining gulch of the Nevada Mountains and iSt Peter’s Church where stands in supernal splendor “the grandest done that mortal hand has painted against God’s loveliest sky.” Little did the widow of the wretched doctor of Virginia City imagine that she would fairly roll in wealth, dwell in palaces, he courted by Church and State, be familiarly associated with the proudest names of the descendants of the Crusaders, and finally become the mother-in-law of a Prince Colonna, whose nobility dates back almost to the time of Saladin. The family name is now as famous as any in history, and the heir of the Colonna family has, at 27 years of age, wed the daughter of the poor doctor who fell by the wayside in Nevada, and sleeps his last sleep in the stony desert. —“ Agusta Constitutionalist.”