Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 183, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1911 — SISTERS [ARTICLE]

SISTERS

Vicky was younger than Edith, but *b» seemed older. She had such an matured air, and a woman-of-the-world manner which seemed to set her be,frond ail youthful folly. It was only when she was alone with Edith that ahe showed the child In her. “One of us has to seem grown up,” Bhe could explain to Edith, "and you are Igppt a baby that I have to put on an Mthne amount of dignity.** Edith smiled. *1 am not such a baby," ehe said, "but you have more 'courage than 1, Vicky; I do not bejßfye that you are afraid of anything.” "Yes I am,” Vicky admitted. "I am afraid of George Miller. Edith.” »■ the color flamed Into Edith’s face. •Why—, why should you be, Vicky?” she demanded. “He always looks at me as if he could see through me," Vicky confessed, "and I feel as if 1 ought to jbe In short dresses and wear my hair In pig-tails.’ "He does not make me feel that way,” she said. Vicky’s short nose was up In the nir. "Of course not, he’s In lore with you, Edith.” "I hope not,* said Edith gravely. “Why not? Vicky demanded. “Because I don’t love him,” was the response. J. „ ....... - “And he loves you. Isn’t that Just the way of It? All the good things come to you and you don’t want them, ..while 1— - - Edith looked at her In astonishment. “Why, Vicky Osborn,” she said “I don’t nee why you should care., “I don’t,” said Vicky bravely, "but George Miller is too good to be hurt.” She said the same thing to the young man that evening when he came out white-faced from a talk with Edith. “I want you to be happy, George,” kite said. “You are n nice little thine Vicky,” he told her, “and we’ve always been flood chums. But I cannot come here any more.” Vicky looked after him forlornly. “I couldn’t tell him the truth,” was her thought, " —that Edith cares for some one else.” She found Edith in tears on the porch. ”i am not going to sympathise,” Vicky scolded; “you ought to love him, if you don’t.” “Bat there Is Richard,” Edith faltered. s “He cannot hold a candle to Georgy” Vicky said. “I believe you are In love with him yourself, Vicky.” / Vicky turned on her, her eyes biasing. “Do you think I’d love a man who didn’t care anything for me?” But that night she cried herself to sleep, and In the morning ahe rose early and went for a walk through the garden and down the road which led to the river. Her big dog. Laddie, followed her. She talked to him on the pier while watching a fisherman drawn In the nets with the morning’s catch. “Edith has always had everything.” she said. “She’s the pretty one and the popular one. I wouldn’t care. Laddie, If ahe loved George; I’d give him up, hut It Is such a pity to have no much devotion go to waste.” In silence she watched a boat shoot out from the upper rapids Into a placid pond. “It's George,” Vicky said, and rose, ready for flight. He saw her and waved to her. “Don’t you want to go for a row?" he asked. Vicky consented, and with Laddie in the stern they turned down stream. There was a little inn on a wooded point There they had breakfast, telephoning to Edith that they would be back at noon. All that morning George poured the tale of Us troubles into Vicky’s sympathetic ears. And Vicky listening, said within her soul: “It Isn’t Edith that he really loves. It’s what he thinks Edith Is.” Yet she dared bring lflm no disillusion, for she could not break faith with her sister. When she reached home she found Edith in a fever of excitement. “Richard wants me to marry him.” she said. “He has it all planned, we'are to live In Us college town and he will finish his studies and have me for his inspiration.” /v Nothing that Vicky could say or do could Influence Edith, and so it hapened that the young and irresponsible pair were married within the month, and thus Vicky was left alone. H Since the death of their father and mother the two girls had been chaperoned by an old aunt whose feebleness made her poor company for a young and eager girl Vicky packed her things and went to the city. She took a small studio tr an old building down town, and there she painted in company with a half dosea other artists. There was one man, a Russian, who nerutinised bar pictures and gave her vSJuable suggestions. “You have genius,” be told her, “but your heart is not to it.” * “X haven’t any heart,” said Vicky. “You had one once.” he said shrewdly, “but It has gone out of your po* session. Who is the man?” Vicky shook her bead at him. “There Is no man,” she said, stoutly. But that night when she went to bed she had a vision of George Miller. She had not heard from him for a

By VIRGINIA BLAIR

long time, but the next morning she wrote him a letter. It was a pitiful little document that held a cry of loneliness. Edith, she said, was busy with her new happiness—everybody seemed busy with their happiness, and she was trying to paint and be happy without Edith, without everybody. Wouldn’t George come down as a cure tor homesickness? He came and found her so thin and white that he cried: “Why, Vicky, what is the matter?” "Nothing,” she declared, and on top of her declaration broke down and cried.

-Ha petted her and went away with a picture of her forlorn little face blotting out the image of Edith’s beauty. He came down often after that and one day be said: “I love you, Vicky. I want to take you home with me." “It is pity, George.”

“It isn’t," he declared stoutly, “you are the one woman in the world tor me.’

She tried to believe him, but her heart whispered: “If Edith were not married, what then?” Then like a thunderbolt came the news of Richard’s death. Edith, heartbroken, went back to the old home and Vicky gave up her idea of a career and took up. once more, the life that they had led together. She said nothing to Edith of her engagement to George. One day she took things into her own hands. She telephoned to George to meet her at the pier, and once more he rowed her down the river. And there Vicky set him free. “But why?" he demanded, “don’t you love me ?” She would not meet his eyes. “Edith —’’ she faltered. “In a little time ehe will have forgotten her sorrow tor Richard-r-end then —you —” “Do you think for a moment, Vicky,” he demanded, “that I want Edith?” “You loved her first,'’ she said.

He leaned forward and took her hand. “little child,” he said, "it was not love that I gave Edith. -I thought it was, because I was blinded by her beauty. But when ahe -threw back to me, so lightly, the heart that she had won, when she had no sympathy, no feeling for the boy she had known all her life, I was disillusioned. It was your sympathy, Vicky, which made a man of inn- It was your pity that revealed to me what you might be aa a wife. The love I had tor Edith, compared to my love for you, la as candlelight to moonlight” And Vicky was content