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Show A SAD ROMANCE. A New York correspondent of the Fort Plain Standard thus tells of a recent sad romance in real life: Malvora Lispert is a merchant on Broadway. In early life he married a society lady in Paris, and returning to New York engaged in his present business. In due time a son was born, who became to them an object of worship. The father was successful in business, and the son denied no luxury that he could wish. When 16 he was sent to Columbia College to complete his education. He graduated and was taken in his father's store. It was not long before the father discovered that the son was wayward and had suspicious associates. Determined to know the worst, he employed detectives to shadow his son, and it was soon brought to light that he regularly visited a woman of low character, who had been known as the inmate of a house of ill-fame, and to whom he was married. When confronted with this information, the son confessed his shame and was repentant. His father proposed that he should leave the city and its "satanic school," and spend a year or two in the country, until he had rid himself of the infatuation of his evil associates. This he consented to do, and the scene of his country life was located in Otsego county. The father, years before, had visited the romantic region made famous by the pen of Cooper. He went with his son to the farm-house of Aaron Pratser, whom he knew, where he engaged board for his son, giving no particular reasons for leaving him there. The son took to fishing and hunting, and was quite contented with the change. The farmer had two daughters, the youngest, a bright, pretty girl, fond of music, of art, of literature, though she had little opportunity to cultivate her taste for either. The young man had not lost his interest in art, music, or literature, and when their acquaintance was more intimate, they were often together, and she improved in all three branches under his instruction. In that region there is not a hill or mountain, glen or forest, rivulet or cascade, that is not invested with a halo of interest, imspired by the commanding genius of Fenimore Cooper. It was an excellent field for this young couple to study. There was no place on either shore of the lake which they had not visited in their wanderings. The new life to the young New Yorker was very delightful. He realized that his pleasant companion was elevating his moral ideas into that sphere desired by the beloved parents. He wrote bright letters to his mother. The young and innocent girl seemed to him, as he found her in this secluded place, like "A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky." It was not long before their friendship ripened into love, and as a suitor for her hand her parents looked upon him with favor, believing him a young man with a bright future. In time he persuaded the young lady and her people to consent to a secret marriage, giving plausible reasons for not wishing his people to know it. They were married, and appeared perfectly happy-though he, knowing that he had no right to marry, while "beholding heaven must have been feeling hell." There came a change o'er the spirit of their dreams. One evening at dusk two rough-looking men called at the farm-house. They were friends of the disgraced woman he had married in New York. They had hunted him out, learned that he had married again, and now demanded a handsome price for keeping silent. The courageous youth refused to be blackmailed. The men made a disturbance and excited the suspicion of the farmer and his family before they left. The young man confessed his situation to his newly-married wife and father. They sympathized with him. The young man's father was sent for, but before he arrived his son was arrested and hurriedly brought to New York. He was indicted for bigamy, and in spite of the efforts of his friends and relatives, sent for 10 years to Sing Sing prison. It was a crushing blow to the son, his wife, his father and his mother. In less than nine months from the time he entered prison he died. Previous to his death his devoted Otsego county wife was permitted to see him in the prison hospital, where she fell on her knees and assured him of her faithful love and fidelity, and offered a prayer to heaven for their forgiveness and future welcome. The girl had suffered months of intense agony, and the visit to the hospital almost prostrated her. She returned to her home, and before the news of her erring husband's death had been announced by the telegraph at her home, she, too, was a corpse. Their bodies have been buried side by side in a cemetery near the water of Otsego, while their friends mourn their sad experience. |