The daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1904-1905, 1904-03-17
A QUESTION OF PERSONAL APPEARANCE

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Is=Sz;SSI arms at the age of 13-and
U.s. one can't remember much of
anything else about her appearance
what will she look like OIL her nine
teenth birthday? AT the first glance it
seemed to be difficult of solution, and
after pondering upon it during many
thousands of miles of travel on the sea
l was no nearer to the answer except
as 1 was nearer to the girl.
1t is true that had had great bun
die of my fathers letters to assist me.
They were waiting for me at Lourenco
Marques, when by the tardy blessing
of heaven l succeeded in getting out of
The Transvaal, where l had spent two
years that will not bear thinking about.
Previous to that experience / had stud
led mineralogy and chemistry in Ger
many, whence, upon an offer that SEEM
ed fattering, l had gone to President
Kruger's realm just in time to get into
all kinds of trouble Suffice it to say
that L never did a days work for the
mining company in whose service
went there; that, thanks to the long
range of modern weapons, l was quite
badly wounded at distance of nearly
a mile from a foolish little riot with
which l had no connection, and that l
lay many months in prison charged
with an offense the nature of which
has not yet been disclosed to me.
Enough of such recollections. This
story begins with my fathers letters.
Those which | found at Lourenco Mar
ques were written after his anxiety in
regard to me had been relieved. He
knew that l was coming home, that i
was none the worse for my wound and
that my desire to roam had probably
been curbed by my experiences. So he
wrote of the future and very cheerily.
1t appeared that all things had gone
surprisingly well with him. He had
never been poor. He was now rich as
he expressed it, ''really beyond my de-
sires-somewhere between my own and
yours, perhaps-but you will not need
to worry much, my boy" A fine old
father he always was. / could not
have chosen a better. It smote upon
my heart that 1 was all to him and yet
had left him so much alone.
However, there was Sibyl; no kin Of
his, to be sure, but very tenderly re-
garded, the daughter of his friend. and
quite helpless in the world except for
him.
''Sibyl has developed beyond any
thing that you would believe" he wrote
IN one of those letters. ''She is a very
brilliant young woman; the promise of
her girlhood is more than fulfilled"
Now, to be honest, the promise of
SibyFs girlhood, as | remembered it,
was not much. She lived at our house
after her sixth year, but l never paid
any particular attention to her, except
to tease her, in the amiable effort to
make her cry. 1t was one of Sibyps
peculiarities that she never would cry
in any persons presence. Even when
an infant, as | had been told she would
hide her tears under a pillow, at the
great risk of smothcring. At a later
period she would shut herself up in the
dark to indulge her grief, and after
some of my experiments with her
youthful feelings it had been necessary
to open all the clothes closets in the
house and even to explore the cellar
in search of her. Experimenting. by
the way, was always my forte. AS
boy l spoiled many clocks by taking
them apart, and doubtless the same
spirit of research often prompted me
in my attacks upon the nervous sys-
TENS of my fellow creatures.
| was away at school during the
major part of my youth and SO saw
less of Sibyl than would have been nat
ural, considering that she dwelt under
my fathers roof My most distinct
recollection of her was as she used to
sit at the table, rigid, embarrassed,
hiding her long arms and long hands
under the cloth; her hair brushed
straight back from a forehead so thin
that it shone upon the curves like a
porcelain doorknob. The composite Of
these impressions may have placed her
in my mind at about the age of II.
My father mentioned in a letter which
1 found at Gibraltar that Sibyl would
be 10 on June 10, quite probably the
date of my arrival in Chicago
After reading this statement / looked
back through the other letters in a
vain attempt to find something descrip-
tive of Sibyfs personal appearance. l
would have welcomed a word upon the
color of her eyes, and the INCEPTION of her
weight would have greatly assisted me
in rectifying a mental picture that
must now be far out of date. Nothing
of the sort existed in these documents.
SibyPs wit, vivacity, scholarship, ac-
complishments-it appeared that she
sang well-were often referred to, and
her amiability. The last was
ominous, for goodness of heart has
been set against beauty since the days
when our early ancestors dwelt in the
branches of trees.
My father did not say that he wished
me to marry Sibyl. He was so careful
not to say it that l caught him lodging
an Of ai those InffR1.G