ROMANCES OF UNEXPECTED FORTUNES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 202, 15 August 1908, Page 4

ROMANCES OF UNEXPECTED FORTUNES.

HOW A SHOl J ASSISTANT CAME INTO MILLIONS.

" Don't cry, Norah, darliug. Shure you'll unman me; and I want to leave j with a brave heart and a smile ou my i face." "And how can 1 help crying, Denis';" Norah answered, as, with streaming eyes and pathetically twitching lips, she. looked up at her tall, stalwart lover, who was pressing her to his breast in an agony of mute surrender. "How can I help breaking my heart when you are going from me'; And maybe I'll never | see you again. If you must go, Dems, take me too; oh, take me," she sobbed. " Don't tempt me, astliore," the .young man pleaded. " It's only for two years, darling; and then I'll be back with a fortune, and we'll set the wedding bells a-ringing, and we'll be us happy as the day's long." IKaining hot, passionate kisses on the lips of the half-fainting girl, and with

ii "Hod bless you, dearest one!" Denis tore himself away, ami with a last wave of farewell vanished round the corner of the road that led h!in away from all he loved best on earth, and to the golden West, where he was lo win the right to claim her as his own for ever.

The story of this tragic parting soon told. Denis liognn was the younger son of a broken Irish squireen—the handsomest young fellow in all County Clare in the far-away 'fifties. Jiorah Sullivan was the only daughter of a reputedly well-to-do farmer near Tulla.

the bonniest maid in all the country side. But Fanner Sullivan would have I nothing to say to the penniless young " harum-scarum " who had stolen away I his daughter's heart. '' I'd rather see her buried," he had said to Denis, '• than marired to the likes of you. Go away; prove that you're a man; and when you come back show me a thousand "pounds, and then I'll begin to think about you as a son-in-law." All Xorah's tears and .pleadings availed nothing; and thus it came to pass that Denis, determined to win his prize or die in the at- I tempt, fared forth, with a brave if breaking heart, that summer day in 1854 to seek fortune and happiness for Xorah and himself. But while Denis fares forth to conquer fortune, let us, for a time, remain hehind and see how fate deals with the girl 'who had his heart in her keeping by the banks of the Rine River, in Co. Clare. When once the agony of parting was over, Xorah's tears—such is the happy resilence of youth—soon gave place to smiles, which once more played hide-and-seek with her dimples. After all, two years would soon pass; they were but- an insignificant fraction of the long life that stretched before her and Denis. And with what eagerness she looked forward to Denis's letters, which soon began to reach her! How she read and reread them, and carried them with her next her heart! They were full of hope as of love, and, although fortune seemed slow' in coming, she knew, oh! so well, that it would come to such a brave seeker all in good time. Meanwhile there were other wooers who sought her hand, but to one and all site turned a deaf ear and cold shoulder. Before Denis had been gone twelve months Farmer Sullivan fell on evil times. Disaster, black and ominous, brooded over the Clare farm; and the crowning blow came when the farmer sickened and died, leaving Xorah homeless and practically penniless. Three months, too. had passed without bringin" her a line from Denis; and although she wrote to tell him of her troubles, she felt, in her despair, that the letter would never reach him. The cup of her sorrow was now full to the brim. What to do or where to turn she knew not, until a happy inspiration solved her difficulty. She had an uncle, a farmer in Michigan. She would go to him; it was thc\)uly prospect of a home open to her; and, at any rate, she would be nearer Denis. So, writing to her lovers last address to tell him, in her pathetic ignorance of the vastness of America, that, she " was coming to him," she rescued from the wreckage sullicieiil money to pav her passage and followed Denis ; to the West. While Xorah was on her way (o an imaginary re-union with her lover, lot us see how Denis has fared in his fight with fortune. When he landed in New York in the early autumn of the yeai , 1854 be found that his few dullars weic much easier to part with thim to replace . lie was thankful to keep body and soul together bv anx kind of menial labour- ' from holding horses to selling papers in , the streets. : From Xew York, which was clearly no place for him, he drifted West, trump- ! ing food and a night's shelter by any ', ing fodo and a night's shelter by any [ kind of work that came his way. Ho [ worked as a blacksmith and as a roadmender in Pennsylvania; for a few [ months ha "taught school" in Michigan within a hundred miles, though he little knew it, of the farmhouse at which Xorah was, a little later, to find a home: ' from Michigan he drifted to Minnesota, where he was glad to earn a dollar and a-half a day as porter at the docks. All the time he was writing hopeful letters to Xorah in far-off Ireland, and receiving letters from her which kept hope and ambition alive in his heart. [ He had not been many days at St. Paul when he was injured seriously by a falling crane; and for months he lay between life and death—those fatal months during which no message from him reached Xorah. On his recovery, he wrote to her again and again—pleading, pathetic letters'; but no word of answer came. And it was with a very heavy heart that he started forth again; this time to Montana in search of gold, which he heard was to be had there for picking up. Kven here his ill-fortune pursued linn; for though others found gold in plenty, so little 'came his way that alter two years of digging and prospecting, he had barely a hundred pounds' worth of the precious metal to show as the net result of his labour. And, to crown his misfortune, he could get no news of Xorah. Was she dead'/ or had she wearied of waiting, and married another'; From Montana Denis went south to Colorado, where, he heard, gold and silver were plentiful enough if they could only be found. Here for ten years no wandered among the hills and creeks, hacking away at the ground without making more than enough to live on, until " Hogan's bad luck " almost pass-d into a proverb. One day Fortune, who had tested him so cruelly, at last relented. He discovered a really rich vein of gold near Battle Mountain, and was soon taking -Ci'O.OOO a month from it. Within a year he had won over .CIOU.W!') and had sold his claim to a syndicate for another £50,000. His golden dream had come true at last! Hut where was Xorah, for whom ho had braved so much? The first use ho made of his money was to return to his native Ireland: only to learn that, long years before. Xorah had gone away —where, nobody knew, but they thought it was somewhere in America. This was the worst blow Fate had dealt him. On his return to America he traversed nearly every Slate in quest, of his missing love; he advertised for her in hundreds of newspapers; engaged agents by the scoiy to aid him in his search: but ill in vain. Xorah hail vanished as conipleielv as if the earth had opened and swallowed her. And it w;is a crushed and broken man who finally gave up the hopeless search ami settled down in a -u.buHi of Washington to spend the rest of his (lavs. ■•Halloa! Miss Hilton, is this meant f'T voir:" exclaimed the manager of a 1 u-ee store in Xew York, one .Inly morii-lu-r in ISfl-2, ns he handed a newspaper lo a pretty, dark-eyed sales-girl at Hi:perfume counter. Miss. Hilton took the paner. and the i-oVur flooded her cheeks' with crimson as she roar!: " H' Xorah Sullivan, who was I'viug in 'County Clare, Ireland. Ml th- vear 18.il. or any of her descendants.' will npplv to Messrs. , of Sti'i"'!, lliooklvn. she or they will hear something to their advantage." ''Why," exclaimed Xorah. "Norah Sullivan was mv mother. T've often heard her talk of her home in County Clare. I wonder what it can mean?" An hour biter the prettv sales-girl was listening lo the Brooklyn lawyer as lie unfolded his strange story—how, a few months earlier, a client of his firm at Washington, one Denis llogan, had died, leaviii" his entire estate, valued at over a million dollars, to his old love. Xorah Sullivan, or. in the event of her mil surviving him. to bo equally divided iiinoiig her children, if any. "And miles.; I am mistaken, young lady, you are (he luckv heiress," he concluded, ''whom we have al last run to earth." What Xorah's feelings were on hearing of this dazzling accession to fortune beyond her wildest dreams may be imagined-thov cannot be described, often ill the old ilavs her mother had told her of (he lover who had left her lo seek his fortune in America, how all her efforts In find him had proved futile, null how, at last, news came to her that a man of his name and description hid , died from an accident at St. Louis. For j years she had mourned his loss, ami had finally consented to marry her cons-

' ill, tlio sou of the ilichiyan farmer who hud given her a home in her trouble". When Nurah wns twenty alio hud lost both [lareiUs, and had been thanknil to, lind a situation behind the counter of a New Vork store. Thus, alter many years, the fortune Denis noyau hiul set forth so bravely to seek eauie into the hands, not ol I Xorah whose love had been his inspira(tion, but of another JSorah to whom slip I hud transmitted all her sweetness and J all her beauty.