The Rose of Yesteryear (1914)

• 77%
• 1914
• Drama
• Stanner E.V. Taylor

The story opens with Miss Leonard, now a woman past the prime of life, relating the sad, romantic story of her life to her dearest niece, who is engaged to be married. As in a vision, the story shifts back forty years and discloses the interior of an orphan asylum. Three babies are there, two boy babies and one baby girl, awaiting adoption into a good home. Years pass and the orphaned children have grown up in three different homes. Miss Leonard's dearest treasures are a pair of tiny baby shoes and a faded plaid shawl given to her foster parents by the asylum nurse. Of her twin brother she knows nothing, except that he too has a tiny pair of shoes like those in her keeping. She loves and is loved in return by a dashing chap, whose mother had adopted him when a baby. They decide to elope, but are stopped by the groom's mother, who thinks she has discovered that Miss Leonard and her son are brother and sister, at least the baby shoes tend to prove it. In a quiet village Miss Leonard discovers her real brother, a clergyman, whose foster parents had lost his tiny shoes at the time of his adoption. She returns to the city and witnesses the marriage of her beloved to another woman. So ended her romance while all the years she treasured the tiny baby shoes that had brought her face to face, with a great tragedy.