Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-07-14
CHAPTER XXu.

CHAPTER XXIL
 Our last night at home-Gerardn and mine. We have been together to the Sciliy isles to-day, by way of keeping our twenty-frst birthday; and in the beautiful abbey gardens we planned and promised for the life we are to lead together. What happy hours we spent in the loveliness and the solitude there Will such ever come again?
 Now that the autumn day is over, we finger with Aunt Jessie aa long IS VIC can, around the great fire in the front kitchen hardly hearing . sound of the noisy gusts of wind that shake the old laburnums outside the wide window. and rattle their branches against the panes. Hardly a sound, because we arc listening with all our ears and hearts to Aunt Jessie's low, subdued voice, as she tells us (for the first time to-night) the story of our ives-my twin brother, Gerard,s, and mine. It is one of the rare nights that grandfather spends from home, so rare that can only remember five or six of them through all my child hood and girlhood. don't know what brings the talk round to the very quss- tion which Gerard and have so often wondered over, and SO often wanted to
 
 into it from talking of grandfather, and of our going away tomorrow from thS old Cornish home.
 Thinking it all over again now, alone in my room, recall, as if I saw it still, Aunt Jessie's tired brown face, with the love and the gentleness creeping into her eyes, every now and then, as they met Gerard's through the story of wrong which he is hearing for the first time, and which may well stir to its depths a warm, proud, generous heart like his. Not but what Aunt Jessie's eyes always do soften a little when they rest on Gerard however cold and hard they may be to meet mine. But will say no word toe night of her indifference to memo, not Q word on this last night. In the dim future, which cannot see, who cap tell whether her love may not seem to me @ vanished blessing? At any rate, I will think now only of her care for the or- phan children, and her req, real love for one of them. And, oh I hope that when the old farm knows us no more. her memory, even of me, may be tender; what her memory of Gerard will be, | know full we'll.
 Aunt Jessie is not our aunt exactly. though we always call her so. Sine is grandfather's sister; SO that she is, in reality, our great-aunt. But that does not make any difference, She has been all that we have ever known of aunt, grandmothsr---even mother. But, ah | not all that we shall know of mother. I think-aad Gerard thinks, I know: for we often talk of it, we two, in the quiet summer twilights, and the long winter evenings-that some day beyond the Golden Gates we shall know her. Oh 1 we shall know hsr-Gerard and Tho fear but what we shall know our own mother
 The last nightl There is something sad in the thought new that it has come upon us, though we have been looking forward to 1t for so long. Isupposa there always will be something sad about every last time, however bright the other beginning that may lie beyond. It fills my eyes with tears even to write Sha words, though my life has net been Q full or happy life in the old farm herS. But said would not write of that. Tonight knew a reason for orand- fathers stern and cruel-seeninR neglect ot us. know & reason for Aunt JeSsie'a 'a love for Gerard and indifference to mel and many things are palmer to me,
 always thought that the reason she did not care to have me with her, either to help or keep her company, was that I never was clever in the farm-work, never quick to understand it, or strong to per- form it; and used to wish she had not sent me to the rectory, to atudy there, because it caused me to be still less fit for my post here. Then, she always liked household work, and never could, Perhaps the feeling has been wrong; have thought so. and struggled against 1t, but have never been able to over. come it.
 It has been much the same, too. with Gerard, only he is so different from me that he would never shrink from any duty, however hard or uncongenial it might be to him-Aever. I know that never through the years to come shall l change this thought. know that what ever paths lay before him, he would know instinctively, by reason of his clear, undertaking sense of honesty, in which his own straightforward course of duty lay, and that nothing would have power to turn him from it-no hardship. no hard work, no rePulse. Oh, Gerard, my twin brother, how wiah had youI bright courage, and your trustful brave Us % help me, too. to walk uprightly in
 To be contInue..
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