The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-04-26

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4 Al
A * Az %&% looked SO plain and
&A SNA3 -c-aA coarse and COM
VI EsfE mon.
WN ~ TN She was SO beau
QN IN tiful, SO bright, SO
saucy of tongue
and keen Of wit.
u h~ She had the
straight brows und lustrous eyes, and dusky
fower-lke beauty of the race from which she
sprung-the Tuscan race, who lived the free
honest, laboyious life OF sons and daughters
of the soil, and were devoted to their birth
place, and loved their simple homes on the
wind-blown hills, and their fields of flgs and
olives. and vines and grain, as though they
were life's fairest and noblest possessions
as indeed they were to them.
They were sisters, Nita and Genna, but
they were thoroughly unlike-the one so
beautiful, the other so plain. Nita was the
younger. there being twelve years between
them, and at first the elder sister had felt
half jealous OF the little brown-eyed babe,
with its blossom Of a mouth, and its f1ossy
silken curls, and the love and tenderness it
won from the mother, who never seemed the
same after it had come. That feeling, how
ever, passed of.
Each year Genna grew fonder of the little,
laughing, toddling child, with her face like
the bud OF the rose-laurel, and her graceful,
supple form, and her feet that seemed always
restless and tireless, fitting about from place
to place. like tho bright-winged butterflies on
the flower stems without. True, she had all
fha o,,I h. 1,I>o
OF the house. True, that each year widened
the difference between them, for as she grew
to maidenhood and leveliness, the other grew
older and coarser and commoner as so many
OF the Tuscan women do grow when the first
flush of youth is past. And then their mother
died and left Nita to her sisters care, and
with her last breath besought her tenderest
guardianship for her pretty, spoiled, willful
darling.
An uncle came to tend the farm, and take
charge of them, Nita being then 16. He was
a rough, fierce, moody man, though Of gen.
erous temper and honest to the core. But
Nita disliked him always, and ho was forever
grumbling at her for her idleness, her saucy
rebellious tongue, her aversion to housekeep-
ing, and her love of dancing and pleasure.
The women around were all strong, useful,
Woodworking, simple, and chaste; but Nita,
gay, insolent, saucy Nita, who laughed at her
numerous lovers, and delighted in nothing
so much as the furious jealousy she raised
she was unlike all these, and offended him in
every way, and with little compunction or
penitence for the offence. So 1t came about
that her sister often had hard work to keep
peace between them, and was hard beset
sometimes to screen Nita'a offenses from old
Maso's eyes, and do her sisters share of
household labor as we'll as her own.
Their cottage was q large low building, set
high on the hills, with groups of Expresses
and walnut trees around it and great slope of
fields and vineyard on either side; other cot
tages and fields owned by different contadini
lay here and there, the nearest being mile
from their dwelling; and far below lay the
town, where fairs sometimes took place, and
where wandering players set up their booths,
and the young. men and maidens met for the
dancing and merry-making that were the
delight of Nita's heart.
Once a painter made picture of Nita, as
he saw her standing in the sunlight with her
arch brown eyes shining under her great
straw hat, and the beautiful, supple, girlish
form set against the glow of poppies and
gold OF corn and cleaning amber sky.
Genna begged him SO earnestly for COPY
of it that he gave her one, and at the next
fair she secured frame for it, and hung it
up in the little, bare, white-walled kitchen.
as the fairest and most exquisite of all their
possessions.
itn rod 4 fhnr 1i,,,.
memento of the flower-like beauty of which
she was so vain; and, indeed, who could
blame her that she Was, for all the country
side were ever praising and extolling her
loveliness, and the young men quarreled
about her from day to day2 To win woman's
envy and arouse mems jealousy is the surest
acknowledgment of a woman's beauty that
she can ever hope to win. Nita had won it,
and the triumph gratifed her far too well for
Genna's liking-far too well for her own
peace.
One summers day the whole village was
keeping the feast of Corpus-C Christi; all the
country people from fur and near were COM
ing in holiday dress, and bells were ringing
over til, hills from every village chapel,
while the long procession wound its way with
silken banners waving. and priestly vest-
ments shining in .the sun. and masses of
flowers and garlands of leaves borne aloft,
and the contadini in their white linen dresses,
and the children chanting the "Laus Deo:'
with their young lovely voices to which mol
ody seemed as natural as song is to the
birds.
Genna and Nta walked in the procession,
Mia glancing ever and anon at her compan-
ions with pretty airs Of coquetry that not even
the solemnity. of the occasion could subdue
and Genna with downcast eyes and grave
sweet lips, parted in the melodious chant in
which she joined, and no thought in her
heart save OF the words she sang, as the pro-
eession wound its way through the waving
wheat and under the boughs where the rec
cherries shone in the MONDAY sunlight.