The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-12-05
The EVENING STORY
Miss Penelope.
[By Troy Allison.1

IBy Troy Allison.1
She greeted her first and only board
er with a shy dignity.
81 think you Will find it quiet enough
ter that you wanted to get away from
home and the children, while you I'm
ished your book"
John Holmes put his suitcase down
rocker offered by Miss Penelope's col
ored servant, Aunt Dilsey.
1T looks nice and quiet" he said
taking in the gorgeous coloring OF the
garden. now gay with dahlias and ger
aniums. II think will be able to
work after day or so Of rest ana
wandering through the woods. When
got your mothers answer to my ad-
vertisement, I instinctively knew that
it was the right one to accept.
Miss Penelope blushed family.
Mot my mothers-I am y0ur-hos-
tess. keep house for my father she
Of herself as his landlady. Aunt
Dilsey will render you any necessary
service. Take Mr.. Holmes suitcase,
Aunt Dilsey and show him his room.
Supper will be ready in half an hour"
He went upstairs to the front bed
room, rather pleased that he would
have for company at supper q pleas.
ing woman of perhaps 80 instead OF
the middle-aged farmers vile Wnom
his imagination had pictured.
Miss Penelope, giving final touch
to her supper table with its center
piece of brilliant fall blossoms. talked
to her blind father. IF it's quiet he
wants-he certainly ought to be salts
fled. But he is a much younger man
than I expected. I have read his last
book-and it doesn't seem that such a
jolly looking man could have written
books SO serious. ssi
"He said there were five children at
his house-and that their mother be-
heved that a constant exercise of lungs
and muscles was good for their. devel-
opment. Well feel really important,
daddy, having real book written In
our house, or on our veranda, or in
our back yard, wherever genius hap
pens to inspire him. and she ran on
merrily, giving the little details which
for the ten years of his blindness had
been the pleasure Of her fathers life.
The novel progressed finely in the
next few weeks. and the boarder d.
afternoons for fishing and rambling
through the woods, and gay little
chats with Miss Penelope and her
father after supper.
Miss Penelope forgot the shyness
for which she was noted, and talked
of the things she had read and dream
ed about for years as IL she had ac-
tually lived them. Returning from
school ten years before, she had not
found the average youth of the com
and reticence had b~~n mistaken for
hauteur, and not one Of the country
SWANS had possessed the courage to
ask her to go for the customary drives
or to the yearly ice cream festival.
She had tended her flower garden,
directed the management of her
fathers farm, and for amusement had
lived in a world of books and maya
zines. The only love of her life was a
worship of Rudolph RassendyH after
PT-iS IF "a
unconsciously adapted her style OF
dress to the lines that she thought
would have suited the slenderness of
Queen Flavia," and never realized
that she was dreaming ner life away.
= To Holmes she talked freely-of her
fancies, of his work, of anything that
the moment prompted, and he had I'M
consciously added a touch of her to
the quaint heroine of his book.
LET me read you the last three
chapters he said one evening, when
the rain had driven them indoors from
the flower garden and the hammock
under the trees. ''It always sounds
conceited for a writer to want to read
his own works, but I believe I have
given the exact touch to this-and I
want to see how it strikes you."
He brought the manuscript and
Miss Penelope lit the old-fashioned
lamp. AS he read, her eyes dilated
and she listened eagerly-she saw her
autumn sun. the woodland path that
led from the back of the garden to
the creek-and it was Mr.. Holmes or
her own Rudolph Rassendyll, trans
planted to quiet and homelike atmos-
phere, that was given red rose in1
the garden by the strangely familiar
woman in the book?
"You have made her like mel" she \
gasped incredulously, land localized
me-and where she tells him about
he, in, r. a re 1T
books she had read-it's exactly what
said to you the afternoon we went
riding on the creek"
'T couldn't help it." he confessed.
at fitted the Esther in my story 50
perfectly that I was simply obliged
to let her borrow the whole converse
ton. You don't mipd, do your
ST never was more hattered in my
life" she said impulsively. II never
imagined there was one trait or
thought of mine of enough import
ance to be written about-but you
have made me seem all that always
wanted to be-
Are you" He laid the manuscript
gave me that day in the garden" he
said abruptly.
She sat still and white, the situation
being one that she had never met with |
or dreamed Of meeting.
ITO me you are Esther-I could
love you the same way" he said quiet
II. /
Miss Penelope rose, frightened and
culver of pain trembling |
On her lips.
"Mr. Holmes, I have admired you.
have tried to entertain you as best
could to keep you from finding the
1ul!ness Of our life tedious. Perhaps |
am to blame" she said dazely: "I
found you so sympathetic and con-
genial that I talked to you more than
ever talked to any one in my life.
but I never thought that you would
his inault-You. q married man. she