The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-04-26
RISING CECIL COUNTY. MD, FRIDAY, 1899.

ceiling nothing, seeing nothing. caring for
10 greatness, only grubbing among your cab
oagns and forcing me to do the same"
"Nita-- Nital Who has put these things
into your head Do you know what you are
.aying?'
The agony and entreaty of her sisters
voice touched the girl to a feeling of momen-
tary regret for her rash impatient words.
Well enough she knew what dull dreary
unlovely life Genna's had been and was; yet
no complaint ever loft the patient lips-no
murmur against the constant uphill strug-
gle with poverty and labor ever had entered
her heart. She had nature whose sunny
content made her happy with very little; a
nature SO patient and enduring that it showed
her no brighter lot which she cared to covet
no hardship against which she could rebel,
He sisters words shocked her greatly, be-
traying as they did an inward discomfort
against the humble peace and safety of her
life, and longing for things unattainable,
and therefore, to Genna's ideas, wrong.
81 did not mean to vex you," said Nita'
penitently; 'but, indeed, cannot help wish
ing for what I said. The faces around me
are always the same; everything here is dull,
stupid, monotonous. am sick of it all. If
only 1 could get away--to Florence-Rome."
s'To Florence?" echoed Genna in amaze
ment 1t was to her as if Nita had said
own high hills, she could see the white,
cleaning roofs of the City of Lilies. ''To
Florence! oh. Nita, my dear, you surely
do not mean it?"
II do" said the girl. willfully; sit is SO
foolish of you and every one here just to
live on and plod on, while days journey
away lie beautiful towns and cities of which
yon know nothing of whose marvels you
will live and die in total ignorance. Iwould
go away tomorrow If I could"
Genna looked at her with q helpless terror
that would have been almost ludicrous, had
not the passionate love in the pathetic brown
eyes redeemed the face from its childish be-
wilderment. Indeed, Nita had but spoken
the truth, for the peasants often live and die
within u score of miles of the cities, and
never travel to see them once. OF any world
beside their own hamlet they are as ignorant
as children.
''Some one has been telling you about the
cities" said Genna presently. "Who was it?"
The hot color surged to the girls brow at
The question. "That is my affair."" she said,
sullenly. and so rose and pushed aside her
plate, and went off to her own little loft with
out another word.
Genna sat there perplexed, terrified, be-
wildered. "What has come to the child?"
she murmured, while the great tears gather
cd in her eyes and fell down on her coarse,
rough hands; 'I cannot understand"
And she could not, for God had given TO
these two sisters natures as different as
drought from rain, as summer from winter.
Nita's words were all obscure to Genna-
terrible, mprehensible, full of ill in store.
From childhood she had been her one
care, her one thought, the one poem of grace
and sweetness and beauty in the dead level
of her life She clung to Nita with an in
tense fidelity. She was the sole ray of light
in her long day of toll and ceaseless labor,
though both labor and toll were alike unre-
compensed, and performed simply from the
sense of duty that to her meant lifes strongest
obligation. And now this simple, faithful,
tender affection was as nothing to her who
owned it was not for one moment regarded
as worth consideration beside the allure
ments OF another life in which all was danger,
and in which she could have no part.
81 am nothing to her," she said sadly, and
the tears gathered in her great wistful eyes.
She went to the room she shared with Nita
and lay down to rest.
Nita was asleep, looking beautiful as pic
ture, with her flushed checks and tumbled
waves of hair, and parted scarlet lips. Genna
did not kiss her. She feared to waken
her.
''She is but child" she thought, looking
lovingly at the beautiful face. "She did not
mean it,"
And so comforting herself with that thought
she fell asleep, while the stiffness and fra
grance of the summer night wrapped all the
quiet house in its own soft mantle of peace
and rest.