The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-12-30
TIE EVENING STORY
TuE GHOST On A CHANCE

mltted signs. BeSs answered with a
toss of the head. "All. our sins must be
uncommitted-I'm sure we've been
brought up more strictly than ever
nuns were. Sometimes when 1 think
over it all, I get fairly afraid for US
tWo-We'Ve been so proper from our
cradles-We must break out after a
WHILE
"Hushl Aunt Wilton would have a
fit if she heard you" Selma said. do I
you think she was ever young, Bess /
can't fancy her less than sixty and |
severe. Yet I do believe she means /
only to be kind, and really wants us
to be happy"
'Yes-in her way-which isn't |
mine-nor anybody else's.'' Bess broke |
out passionately. ''Her way is to have |
everything just so three hundred and |
sixty-hve days in the year. We have
all sorts of material good things-we
eat well, sleep well. dress well-but no |
liberty to get the good of them. How
many times did we wear our best
frocks last summer Not once And
is going to be the same this season. |
People never ask us to things any more
because they know we won't come
''I don't mind that so much as the
fiowers-shouldn't you like, just once,
to run riot in the garden, pulling what
ever you liked?"
You hereto! Aunt Wilton would
have serious doubts as to your sanity
if she heard that I think she loves
/ flowers, not because they are flowers
4 and beautiful-but because they are
her own
THE same as her nieces,' a deeper
voice said, from an ambush of lilac
hedge. Next minute the hedge shook
Violently-it was old and gnarly, being
! a party hedge and therefore beyond
Wilton control. The end of the shak-
ling was young man, slim and merry
/ eyed, who bowed very low to the two
young women, then said deprecatfng-
! ly: Don't freeze me because caves
dropped: I know how bad it is, but
really this time the end justifies it.
4 I m a committee of one, self appointed,
/ to find out just why the incest girls IN
/ town stay out of everything
win you listen ?" Bess adjured Sc
! lima, whose eyes were dancing, though
her face was preternaturally grave as
she answered: Everybody overlooks
Joe Hartwell's fbs, because he fibs SO
nicely"
/ Hartwell laughed. His father being
Aunt Wilton's lawyer, he knew the
Ford girls, Aunt WiltOn's nieces, better
| than anybody in Caswell town. 1t was
| a. knowledge that ran back to the mud
/ pie period, although the Fords knew
no more of mud pies and their max
/ ing than could be gathered from
! watching him enviously through the
crannies of the hedge.
Now for two years he had been Won
/ dering how they had escaped their
bringing up. Selma, he was sure, was
/ full of mad lOngings for life and free
dom. About Bess he was not so sure
| unbean, sang and laughed herself
into the deepest depths of his heart.
/ Therefore he resented bitterly her $50
lation. The sisters would some day in
herit Aunt Wilton's more than com
/ Portable fortune. It CALLED him to
think that people would say Bess had
/ married him through lack of other
] lovers; maybe also that his father had
! encouraged his client to keep her
heiresses so secluded out of regard for
/ the interests of his son. Beyond all
THAT though, was the rebellion against
/ thus winning by default. How could
Bess be sure she really loved him,
! when she had had no chance OF meas
/ uring him against other lovers?
1t was with a hope of giving her that
/ chance he had asked his chum, Denni-
son, for a months visit. Dennison was
handsome, witty and winning. His
/ coming, duly advertised, had set social
| CasweI all a-fiutter. There were al
ready things planned for all the first
fortnight. Selma and Bess had been
discussing the most spectacular of
/ Them the lawn party at the old Yer
non place. It was to come off by
/ moonlight, aided and abetted by Jap
aneSe lanterns; there would be dane
ing, of course, and supper in the big
hall of the deserted mansion Every
/ body was to 60 in costume, and
masked. Except for that Selma and
Bess might have had faint hopes
| but Aunt Wilton's face was flint to-
ward masking--it savOred to her so
much of acting and the theater-
If Hartwell had known that-but
i speculation is idle. He looked blank
| indeed when Selma let him see how
the land lay. "And got it up mostly
so you might dance your fill, he said
| sorrOwfully. How I wish I could
| wash the slate clean and begin all
over! Such a great lark I hoped we
might have, and now to think
"Such great lark we will have!"
Bess cried, springing up, and whirling
lr1. in, MT nf ha ards
Hartwell stared at her Selma looked
puzzled. Bess stopped short in her
dancing to put her finger on her lip,
and say, nodding sagely between
you see US, joe I think We're coming
though we have just the ghost of
chance"
The lawn party had to take its full
moon on trust-so many clouds sailed
in the sky the lantern lights shone all
undimmed- The thick lowery night
kept the crowd close about the house.
It was big and substantial, and if the
worst came in shape of rain. dancing
could go on inside. True. a few nerv-
Gus persons said that would hardly do
I-OI course 1t was all idle tatk-nOne
/ the less there had been talk of a Yer
non ghost. Two ghosts indeed-those|
/ of the Vernon twin sisters, who had
loved the same sweetheart and had re-
fused to marry him out OF regard for
the other. They had lived to a. great
old age, fading and falling at last like
! withered roses, there in the family
mansion. They had been dead twenty
years with none but good words to
follow them. If they did not sleep
peacefully in their sunny graves, then
were pure lives and good deeds vain.
/ Notwithstanding there was the talk
now one, now another, glimpsed
them walking hand in hand up the
/ broad stairway, or fitting at dusk
| through the oyergrown rose garden.
| Dennison heard all this avidly He
/ liked whatever was old-worId and I'M
usual Perhaps that was why when
the rain at last sent everybody scurry-
+ ing within, he drew little apart from
the merrymakers and stood staring up
j -. IL.