KATE SHETLAND’S TRIUMPH. 
“ Charlie, can you give me fifty dollars to-day?” 
The speaker was a beautiful woman, young and re¬ 
fined; yet, as she addressed her husband, the tone of her 
voice betokened no confidence of success. 
Kate Shetland, the daughter of loving parents, had 
received many educational advantages, and had profited 
by them. 
At the age of twenty she had married Charles Shet¬ 
land—not for money, but because she loved him. and 
believed that he reciprocated her love. His possessions, 
then, consisted of a clerkship, good health, and willing 
hands. The.year after their marriage liis employers 
offered him an interest in the business, which was 
rapidly increasing. 
From that time, henceforth, he applied himself with 
renewed vigor to the pursuit of riches, and seemed to 
forget all else in the desire to become wealthy. 
Poor Kate noticed the change which so suddenly took 
place in her husband, and exerted herself more than 
ever to make home attractive. Two or three times had 
she been refused small sums of money, upon the plea 
that payments were due and times were dull, and, 
readily believing this, she economized in every way, 
until her furniture, and even her dress, became shabby. 
Returning one day from a visit to a sick woman, she 
overheard two men in conversation, and, catching the 
sound of her husband’s name, she resolved to listen. 
Said the first, “ Shetland is growing old; what is the 
matter with him? Domestic troubles?” 
“No !” replied the other; “his home is more attract¬ 
ive than the average home, and he has one of the love¬ 
liest wives that ever blessed a household. He has no chil¬ 
dren toclothe, yet his wife is shabbily dressed. My friend, 
I can tell you Charles Shetland’s malady. It is love of 
money. Only three weeks ago he cleared ten thousand 
dollars at one operation, yet he feels poorer than ever. 
Mark my word, something must change him or he will 
die like a miser—counting his gold.” 
Elate hurried home, saddened by the words she had just 
heard. They were hard to believe, yet they must be true. 
She could now account for disconnected words about 
speculations and profits that she had heard him utter in 
his sleep. She resolved to ask him once more for money, 
and, if refused, she had a plan. 
The next morning she aroused her husband from his 
absent-mindedness by the above question : “ Can you 
give me fifty dollars to-day?” 
“Why, Kate,” he replied, pettishly; “what can you 
want of so much money ?” 
“ I must have a new dress, and some necessaries for 
the house.” 
“ Bosh ! Elate, you must not be extravagant. Here 
are five dollars; all I can spare to-day.” 
“ But what has become of the ten thousand you made 
the other day?” 
He looked at her in blank astonishment, then took his 
hat and left the house. 
Kate, like any true woman, sat down and cried- 
What had she done to merit such treatment? She 
loved her husband, but resolved never to ask him for 
money, and perhaps his affection for her would return 
if she did not trouble him on that one subject. 
Possessing considerable talent for painting, and re¬ 
solving to use it as a means of supplying her scanty 
puree, the unhappy woman first tried copying a few pic¬ 
tures that decorated their walls, but these did not satisfy 
her, because she could not work hopefully and cheerfully. 
Troubles preyed upon her mind, and she was some¬ 
times tempted to abandon her resolution. 
Discouraged with copying, she undertook to paint, 
from memory, several pictures, among them the home 
of her childhood. But, for all t his, she received a mere 
pittance. 
From the first, there had been one conception on her 
mind which seemed to obscure all the rest, but she for¬ 
bore to paint it upon the canvas, deeming her heart’s 
thoughts too sacred to expose to the public gaze. 
But, now, when discouragement almost overwhelmed 
her, something seemed to urge her to delineate her in¬ 
most thoughts. 
“ Ah !” said she, “ I must succeed, for every touch of 
the brush will be true to nature.” 
Through long weeks she worked over two pictures, 
her cheeks often glowing at the thoughts of the object 
she was trying to achieve. At last she dropped her 
brush, murmuring, “Oh, if these accomplish my ob¬ 
ject; if they only change my husband to his former 
self, then am I amply repaid.” 
She hastily threw on bonnet and shawl, glided down 
the street to a store where her former productions had 
been sold, left the two pictures of her heart, and walked 
rapidly home. 
“Oh,” she whispered, “may Providence prompt 
Charlie to' look into that shop-window as he comes 
home. Surely, those pictures cannot fail to restore him 
to me.” 
Charles did stop as he passed the window, and as ho 
gazed at these two pictures, great drops of perspiration 
bedewed his brow, and tears rolled down his cheeks. 
There, in a bare, unfurnished room, was his own face 
and form—a man, prematurely old, clad like a beggar. 
On the table, before him, burned a piece of candle, 
which sufficed for light as he counted his heaps of gold. 
The other picture represented a room in his own 
house, the furniture of which was easily recognized. 
Near a table sat his wife, the impress of sorrow upon 
her brow, patching an old dress, the pattern of which 
was only too familiar. 
Long did Charles Shetland stand and gaze, and then 
and there did he become a changed man. He realized 
how he had worshipped money, recalled with regret the 
unhappiness he had caused his wife, and resolved, from 
that moment, to open his plethoric purse and enjoy the 
riches he had heaped up. ' 
He carried his resolution into effect by buying the pic¬ 
tures for five hundred dollars, and with them in his pos¬ 
session, he started for home, a wiser man. 
We pass over the reconciliation, feeling that it would 
be sacrilege to intrude. Suffice it to say that the pic¬ 
tures hang in their room as a reminder of the happy 
days when he was led by them to realize the future in 
store for him, and he decided to use the wealth he was 
accumulating for the comfort ofihiB wife and the good 
of his fellow-men. Clara Julien. 
