Republican Herald

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE DEMON BRIDE.

The following incident occurred some years ago in Virginia, and is told in the lines which follow without exaggeration:

Col. T., a gentleman of great respectability, and frequently high sheriff and representative of the county, died, leaving a wife and several children, among them a very beautiful daughter about fifteen years of age. The widow finding herself embarrassed, opened a boarding house at the county seat, and among her boarders was a Mr. W., a wealthy merchant, over forty years, but a fine looking man. This gentleman was the prop and stay of the family; gave employment to the sons, educated the daughter at a "fashionable academy;" and, very naturally, on her return, fell desperately in love with her, when he should have preferred the mother. He pressed his suit with perseverance, but the beautiful Mildred resisted his appeals, and the importunities of all her friends. Finally, however, after two years of assiduity and delicate gallantry on the part of Mr. W., and the combined tears, entreaties, threats and persecution of her family, the fair girl reluctantly stood before the altar and became his wife. The next evening a large party was given them, but, in the midst of it, Mr. W., being attacked with vertigo and sick headache, was compelled to withdraw. His young wife hung over him in the silent watches of the night, apparently in deep distress, and insisted on giving him a potion. She poured out a wine glass full of laudanum, and he swallowed it unconscious of its nature. It acted as an emetic, but left him stupid and wandering. One moment he lay motionless, as if on the brink of the spirit world, and next he would leap up convulsively, a strong man in his agony. Mrs. W., denied all admission into the chamber. At length he fell into a deep sleep. She then stooped for a moment over the smouldering embers—approached the bed—gazed at her sleeping husband—and, holding a heated ladle in her hand, attempted to pour a stream of melted lead into his ear! She trembled, and the hissing liquid, intended to scald the brain, and thus kill without a trace, fell upon his cheek. He shrieked in excruciating torture; and the revellers, in the adjoining saloon, rushed into the chamber. There writhed the still stupid husband, and the lead riveted deep into his cheek, and there stood the fiend wife, her bridal fillets yet upon her brow, the instrument of death in her hand, and an empty vial, labelled "Laudanum," laying on the floor. The fearful realities of the case flashed upon every one; and, in the confusion of the moment, she was hurried away and taken to a distant state. On searching the apartment an old magazine was found containing the confession of a woman, who had murdered five husbands by pouring lead into their ears. The laudanum and the lead, it was ascertained, she procured from the store of Mr. W., a few days before the marriage, and the ladle was part of his wedding gift. The grand jury next morning found a bill against the fugitive, and the legislature, being in session, forthwith decreed an absolute divorce. What renders this case more extraordinary is, that Miss T. was proverbial for the blandness of her manners, and uniform sweetness of disposition. She was a blonde. The rose leaf tinted her lily cheek, as a sunbeam glows on snow. Her blue eyes were indescribably sweet, and her golden hair floated around a form more perfect and voluptuous than ever Apelles dreamed of, or Petrarch sung. The sequel of this romance is yet more singular. Years rolled away, and W. continued a wretched and solitary man. But the spell of the enchantress was still upon his soul. He closed his stores, sold his estates, collected his ample means, and traced her to her distant retreat to make a new offer of his hand! She had just married a gentleman of high standing, acquainted with all the details of her career—shuddering at the tragedy, but incapable of resisting her charms. Poor W.! Then, indeed, did the iron enter his soul—"the deadly arrow quivered in his side:" His early love—his fluctuating courtship—his marriage, and the catastrophe—the flight—the divorce—his years of misery—the new birth of his passion—and now his disappointment, final and forever—came crushing over him like an iceberg in the tide of bitter memories, and he prayed for death. Whether this prayer was granted, I know not. He may yet wander, broken-hearted, over the earth. If he be dead, a more wretched, yet a purer and nobler spirit, never winged its flight to heaven.