AN AFFECTING STORY OF "A DEVOTED WIFE."

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3620, 3 August 1880, Page 2

AN AFFECTING STORY OF "A DEVOTED WIFE."

This story comes to us jbf jififciof America from Italy. Signora Malenenini was the lady> name; tod she wtf^w if i of a Urge landed proprietor; jtitif Wu aba. one of the most beautiful WQmn^ in^-Paifri mo, and is said to hare been, at «.jp^9deraM|~ estimate, at least three times->aVr cbpd as she was beautiful.; One day. tar, Msfeaud j went to look at an olite plantation puck;, he had some ideaof buying* and, -asi-ii] appeared, a little band of Drinadi wai» ' waiting for him to arrirei ■Whia; heu' did' appear he was promptly captured-; and. taken to the mono tains,' fttiaf whence 1 the mo3t. literate 5 brigand «f! the company, wrote to Sigriora Milenehin i 1 to announce the fact th»t her hniband; was Tisiting at the care and had pressing' need of ten thousand dollars, .The money,♦ must, it was intimated*"besentat once, and if it did not arrive in a week the would receive on MondayaUttie reminder?; in the shape of her: husband's <ear«. t A second day's'delay would necessitate? then; dispatch of a second ear, and* those organs exhausted, his nose would follow as a proof of the urgency of the business. The sufferings of the bewared wife maybe better imagined thaii described?.^ She sold all her jewels and' personal ; property, but this only brought a fifth part of the money, and the week Relapsed before the required sum- had ■ been .made upv > Punotual to .their promise, on the Monday an ear arrired; and wHenshe had wept over, it a good deal, she rjsnewed her efforts to make up the ransom, climbing innumerable staircases to beg or borrow something towards., the, , fand. Next day came the other ear t v arid then ! the nose, after which casual fingers and a lip reached her, and.she beganrto refect that the creature for whom she was weeping and labouring differed in some important particulars from the husbands she had lost. Besides, to pay the money, .which she had just laboriously scraped together, would be to encourage brigandage. She, therefore, consulted herlmotker on the subject, and asked:," Is my husband in his present state worth 10,000 dollars P Had I not better refuse to take him. on the ground that he is so eztensirely . damaged P With the money in my pos- fs| session I can get a handsome trousseau,' and a whole husband. Is not this my plain duty P" Her mother unbesitatiagty said that it was, and Signora Malenchini, notifying to the brigands that oa the., whole she must decline to acce'ptVthe/ % remnant of her husband still in. taeir , possession, tried to meet her loss r #ith' ; resignation.