Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 284, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1915 — HIS OTHER SISTER [ARTICLE]

HIS OTHER SISTER

By CLARISSA MACKIE.

(Copyright. 1915. by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) Jack Tenby came into the dining room waving a telegram at his assembled family. “Guess who is coming tonight," he challenged. “Isabella Drew,’’ hazarded Betty, with sisterly devotion. "Oh, pshaw!" blushed Jack. “I didn't mean Isabella." 4 “Well, she is coming.” went on Betty, smoothly. "Father and mother are going to town on the 8:42 to stay over night and I've telephoned Isabella to spend the night with me there. Tm such a dear, you ought to tell me about your message. Jack!” “It’s from Lance Freeman,’- he replied. "Lance Freeman from Panama?" "Yes. He’s up here on business. He has promised to stay with me,” he added proudly. “I tell you, folks, Lance is a pretty big gun down there on the isthmus, and Betty"—addressing his sister in an offensively patronizing tone—“it’s a good thing you’re not, the paint-and-powder sort of girl —Lance detests the whole tribe.” # "In —d-e-e-d?" drawled Betty, over her toast and tea. "Yes. indeed! He’s terribly fussy about women, you know.” “He must be a detestable paragon himself,” murmured Betty. “Don’t quarrel, children,” chided Mrs. Fenby. “You must do the honors Betty, and, Jack, try to persuade Lance to make our home his headquarters while he is North. I was very fond of his mother.” Mr. Fenby and his wife departed for their train and Jack accompanied them, to spend the day at his office in town. Left to herself, Betty held conference with the cook and then went up to her own room, where she sat down before her dressing table and stared thoughtfully at her charming reflection in the oval mirror. What she saw there must have pleased her capricious fancy, for she smiled and nodded and sparkled at herself. At last,-she changed to a street gown, and walked down to the drug store.

At six o’clock that evening Jack Fenby brought Lance Freeman home. Eliza, the trim parlor maid, wore a stunned look on her round face. "Miss Betty is in the drawing room,” she announced with a toss of her head. Jack ushered his big, bronzed friend from the tropics into the soft lighted room where Betty and Isabella Drew were sitting before the fire. Betty rose and came forward with outstretched hand. She saw a tall, broad-shouldered young man with keen gray eyes that seemed to probe the depths of her heart and soul and come away disappointed, finding evident relief in Isabella Drew’s girlish simplicity. The newcomer’s evident dismay and disapproval of her own charms —a dismay that his straightforward nature could not then conceal —struck a pang to Betty’s heart. Lance Freeman, eagerly anticipating this meeting with the adored sister of his classmate, saw a slender, golden haired girl in a tight-fitting frock, her feet incased in absurdly high-heeled slippers, her golden hair twisted into the latest mode atop her small head, her blue eyes wide and shallow looking in their baby stare, her face carefully powdered and rouged, eyebrows penciled, lips skillfully tinted, pearls in her ears and encircling her white throat. A very much painted and powdered, bepearled, showy and altogether shoddy looking young woman—such was Lance Freeman’s hasty estimate of his friend’s sister. Isabella Drew made a perfect foil for Betty. Jack wondered dazedly if the simplicity of Isabella’s attire was studied and if she was in collusion with his mischievous sister to shock Lance Freeman. "Betty!” he gasped indignantly. "Jack!” she warned, giving Lance a limp hand. “I am so glad to see you at last, Mr. Freeman. Jack has talked a lot about you. “Mother left word that you are to make the Oaks your headquarters while you are North.” "You are all most kind,” murmured Lance, staring at the powdered littl£ beauty, who smiled insipidly. As the two young men dressed for dinner they talked of Lance s life in the Canal zone, of his brilliant prospects for the future, of Jack s first law case, which had been a triumph for the Junior member of his father's firm, and when Lance observed that there was a strong family likeness between Jack and his sister, Jack hastily changed the.subject. • Lance was ready first and he came into Jack’s room and examined the photographs on the mantelpiece. One framed portrait he regarded with narrowed eyes. It was Betty’s latest photograph,, the picture of a charming, merry-eyed girl in a soft, white gown, her simply dressed hair waving away from her broad, low forehead. It was a sweet, thoughtful face, very unlike the painted, shallow countenance of the Betty he had met half an hour ago. “Is this your other sister?" he asked curiously. -You’ve met my only sister," muttered Jack glumly. “Hum!" said Lance perplexedly. Jack glowed resentfully. “And she takes a diabolical delight in turning the tables on a fellow." A queer gleam came into Lance’s eyes, but he made no response.

During the dinner that followed. Jack devoted himself to Isabella and left Lance to Betty’s tender mercies. The man from Panama had to admit that Jack’s sister was clever, even brilliant, in spite of her shallow appearance. and while they conversed, chiefly about life at the Isthmus, to which he was soon to return, Lance was studying Betty closely, trying to trace some likeness to the unaffected girl of the portrait upstairs in Jack’s room. And Betty? Beneath her masquerade of paint and powder and her mother’s pearl necklace, she was raging at herself. Never had she been so attracted to any man as to Lance Freeman, and she read only amused contempt in his steady glance. She had always been used to the unqualified admiration of her brother’s friends, and Lance was his most particular chum. She was ready to cry with vexation when the meal was over. Why, she asked bferself, had Bhe taken it into her silly head to flout a plain man who hated powder and paint on his woman folks? Why blame him because he wanted them to be as fresh and clean skinned as himself—as frank and unassuming as he was? And naturally Betty was all these things herself. Therein lay the tragedy. In the drawing room Isabella played and sang for them, and presently Lance asked Betty to show him Mr. Fenby’s famous collection of orchids. Among the orchids In the conservatory, he told her about the beautiful black orchid which he had seen in one of the jungle swamps of the isthmus and how he could go to the very tree to which the parasitic blossom clung. > “Perhaps your father would like one —I will try to get some and send them up by a trusty messenger,” he offered. Betty agreed that her father would be delighted, and then followed a delightful half hour during which she animatedly told him how her father had acquired many of his specimens, and she displayed such a knowledge of the subject and so entirely forgot the part she was playing that Lance found his heart slipping from his keeping. They were standing near the fountain and Betty was dipping her fingers in the water, where goldfish darted to and fro. Lance regarded her thoughtfully. “I’m wondering why you took the trouble to disguise yourself under the paint and powder of a circus woman,” he remarked curiously. “Sir!” thrilled Betty, trying to wither him with a glance, but crumpling miserably beneath his scorn. She tried to hate him for his brutal frankness, his 4ack of polish. “Please take me back to my brother.” “In a moment,” he agreed gruffly. "I —I was hoping you’d wash your face first!” he blurted out. “Wash my face?" stammered Betty. He nodded and gave her a snowy handkerchief. “Please, do,” he urged, but it sounded like a command, and Betty, having met her master, meekly obeyed. She held a corner of the handkerchief under . the fountain spray and scrubbed the paint and powder from face and lips and brows. When she had emerged, her perfect skin, pink and blooming from the friction, she looked demurely at him. “Well?” she smiled. “And please fluff out your hair the way it is in that lovely picture in Jack’s room. There! You don’t look so confoundedly sophisticated. Thank you, Miss Betty, you are a brick!” he ended enthusiastically, as she removed the earrings. “A brick,” dimpled Betty, as he tucked the damp and smeared handkerchief in his pocket. When they returned to the drawing room Isabella was telling Jack a story that brought reluctant mirth in its train. “Here comes the little imp now," he murmured, as she entered with Lance. “Well, Betty, I’m glad you’ve emerged from your war paint,” he ended in a burst of brotherly frankness. “Where did you raise that black satin horror?” “Cousin Daisy left it here last year; isn’t it awful?” she confided. Hours ljter, in her own room, Betty dropped her newly-purchased rouge pelts into the waste-paper basket. Then she relapsed into dreamy inactivity. "Oh, most adorable of men,” she sighed at last. “I’m so glad you don’t like paint and powder combined with pearls—l detest ’em myself — if I did like them I would —but, no—l shall not tell even you”—nodding at her adorably blushing reflection in the glass — “vjhat I am thinking about now!"