For Woman's Love. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

great firm of Rockharrt & Sons, proprietors of the Plutus iron mines and the North End foundries, which supplied the mighty engines on the great lines of railroad from the East to the West, and whose massive buildings, forges, furnaces, store-houses and laborers' cottages occupied all the ground between the foot of the mountain and the banks of the river, on both sides of the Whirligig, at the upper or north end of the valley, where a substantial bridge connected the two shores.

      This settlement, called, from its position, North End, was quite a thriving little village. North End was not only blessed with a mission church, having a schoolroom in its basement, but it was provided with a post-office, a telegraph, a drug store, kept by a regular physician, who dispensed his own physic (advice and medicine, one dollar), and a general store, where everything needed to eat, drink, wear or use (except drugs), was kept for sale.

      On this bright June morning, however, the great works were all stopped. There was a general holiday, and as this was at the cost of the firm, it gave general satisfaction. All the people of North End, except the aged, infirm and infantile, were trooping down the valley, on the rough road between the foot of the West Ridge and the side of the river, to a fete to be given them at Rockhold on the occasion of the marriage of old Aaron Rockharrt's granddaughter, Corona Haught, to Regulas Rothsay, the governor-elect of the State.

      It was a marriage of very rare interest to the workmen and their families. To the men, because the governor-elect had been one of their own class. The elders remembered him from the time when he was a friendless orphan child, glad to run the longest errand or do the hardest day's work for a dime, but also a very independent little fellow, who would take nothing in the shape of alms from anybody. To the women, because he was going to marry his first and only sweetheart, and on the very day before his inauguration, so that she might take part in the pageantry that was to be his first great success and triumph.

      On one side of the river, at the foot of the East Ridge, stood Rockhold, the country seat of the Rockharrts, in its own park, which lay between the mountain and the river. The house itself was a large, heavy, oblong building of gray stone, two stories high, with cellar and garret. From the front of the house to the edge of the river extended a fair green lawn, shaded here and there by great forest trees. Under many of these trees, tables with refreshments were set, and seats were placed for the accommodation and refreshment of the out-door guests. In sunny spots, also, some white tents were raised and decorated with flags.

      As a group of working men and women sat on the west bank of the river, waiting impatiently for the return of the ferryboat, they saw, from minute to minute, carriages drive up the lawn avenue, discharge the occupants at the main entrance of the house, and then roll off to the stable yard in the rear.

      These seemed to come in a slow procession.

      "Only the nearest relations and most intimate friends of the family are invited to the ceremony. There have only been five carriages passed since we have been sitting here, and I don't believe there was one come before we came, or that there'll be another come after that last one, which was certainly the groom's," said Old Marwig.

      "Oh! was it, indeed? But how do you know?" demanded Mrs. Bounce.

      "It is the new carriage from North End Hotel! And he and his groomsmen had engaged it. That's how I know! Here comes the ferryboat! Now for it!"

      The boat touched the banks, and as many as could find room crowded into it, and were speedily rowed across the river and landed on the other side, where they found a few of the lawn party there before them.

      "There is Mr. Clarence Rockharrt coming toward us!" said Mrs. Bounce, as the party walked up from the landing, and a medium-sized, plump, fair man of middle age, with a round, fresh face, a smiling countenance, blue eyes and light hair, and in "a wedding garment" of the day, came down to meet them, and shook hands with all, warmly welcoming them in the name of his father. Then he led them up to the lawn and gave them chairs among the unoccupied seats at the various tables.

      "If you please, Mr. Clarence, is the groom in good health and sperrits?" meaningly inquired Mrs. Bounce.

      "Mr. Rothsay is in excellent health and spirits, thank you," replied the gentleman, looking a little surprised at the question: an then moving off quickly to receive some new arrivals.

      The guests for the lawn party were constantly arriving, and the ferryboat was kept busy plying from the shore to shore.

      It is time now to introduce our readers to the house of Rockharrt.

      Old Aaron Rockharrt, the head of that house, was at this time seventy-five years of age and a wonder of health and strength. He was called the "Iron King," no less from his great hardihood of body and mind than from his vast wealth in mines and foundries. In size he was almost a giant, with a large head covered by closely-curling, steel-gray hair. His character may be summed up in a very few words:

      Aaron Rockharrt was an incarnation of monstrous selfishness.

      His manners to all, but especially to his dependants, were arrogant, egotistical and overbearing. He was utterly destitute of sympathy or compassion. There was no room for either in a soul so full of self. In his opinion there was no one on earth, neither king nor Kaiser, saint nor hero, so important to the universe as Aaron Rockharrt, head of Rockharrt & Sons.

      Yet Aaron Rockharrt had two redeeming points. He was strictly truthful in word and honest in deed.

      His wife was near his own age, a quiet, gentle, little old lady, small and slim, with white hair half hidden by a lace cap. If she ever had any individuality, it had been quite crushed out by the hard heel of her husband's iron will. Their eldest son and second partner in the firm was Fabian Rockharrt, a fine animal of fifty years old, though scarcely looking forty. He had inherited all his father's great strength of body and of mind, with more than his father's business talent; but he had not inherited the truth and honesty of his father.

      Yet there is no one wholly evil, and Fabian Rockharrt's one redeeming quality was a certain good nature or benevolence which is more the result of temperament than of principle. This quality rendered his manner so kind and considerate to all his employes that he was the most popular member of his family.

      Clarence, the second son, was much younger than his elder brother, and so diametrically opposite to him and to their father, both in person and character, that he scarcely seemed to come of the same race.

      He was really thirty-five years old, but looked ten years less, and was a fair blonde, medium-sized and plump, with a round head covered with light, curling yellow hair, a round, rosy face as bare as a baby's and almost as innocent. He had not the satanic intellect of his father or his brother, but he had a fine moral and spiritual nature that neither could understand or appreciate.

      There were yet two other exceptions to the family character of worldliness and selfishness. There were Corona and Sylvanus Haught, a sister and brother, orphan grand-children of Aaron Rockharrt, left him by his deceased only daughter. Sylvanus, a fine, manly young fellow, resembled his Uncle Clarence in person and in character, having the same truthfulness, generosity and sincerity, but with a mocking spirit, which turned evil into ridicule rather than into a subject of serious rebuke. He was three years younger than his sister. Corona was a beautiful brunette, tall, like all the Rockharrts, with a superbly developed form, a fine head, adorned with a full suit of fine curly black hair, delicate classic features, straight, low forehead, aquiline nose, a "Cupid's bow" mouth, and finely curved chin. This was her wedding-day and she wore her bridal dress of pure white satin, with veil of thread lace and wreath of orange buds. Hers was the very triumph of a love match, for she was about to wed one whom she had loved from earliest childhood, and for whom she had waited long years.

      Here was Corona Haught's great victory. She had seen his opponents, her own family, bow down and worship her idol. Yet, at the culmination of her triumph, on this her bridal day, why did she sit so pale and wan?

      From her deep, sad reverie she was aroused by the entrance of her six gay bridesmaids.

      "Corona, love, good morning! Many happy returns, and so on!" said Flora Fields, the first bridesmaid, coming up to the pale bride and kissing her.