The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-10-19
The EVENING STORY
.AnotIler Sort of Girl.
v Martha McCulloch-williams. )

!
with extreme nicely, as he answered !:
Don't know-unless you marry me.
| l heard we were engaged at the post
| office yesterday
! ''Sluggard! heard that a week ago,
at least" Lotte flung back at him,
laughing softly.
Basil looked injured. "And you never
told met" he murmured.
! Lotto shrugged family. II would
only there was no danger" she said
| Even if L wanted you ever so badly,
Uncle Joseph and Aunty's Beth and
Margaret would all protect you. They
don't want the King heirs consolidated
not a bit of it. Told me so fatty be-
fore yoa came"
Indeed! Why didn't they warn
me?'' Basil asked, his tone more than
ever injured.
Again Lotte laughed ooh. they
couldn't think of you as in danger,
she said. You see, we know what
| lady-kil you are-then, too, you
have so much money-quite too much
1 to think of wasting yourself upon
lanky country girl
you are not a bit like my DEAN
girl Basil admitted. "She has wheat
yellow hair, eyes of corn-flower blue
and not an angle in her form or in her
temper You are-well tail and
slender"
And brown of hair, with green eyes.
Lotte broke in. her eyes dancing their
wickedest. nm so glad you told me
your ideal, though" she went on. q m
going to take you to see tin dupli-
cate, the Dale twins-Emma and
Agnes. Youu have to see the whole
flock, of course-but they are the chief
of our sights-the seven prettiest girls
in the county,
Seven! Good Lord! I can't face
whole platoon. Not without getting
tending TO gasp. Cant 1 manage it
the insurance-over the phone? [
believe. though, you are stringing me-
''Would 1 werel" Lotte said mock
tragically- '.Then-well. I shouldn't
live in deadly fear of spinsterhood.
You see, it is this way-Granny Dale's
sons are all dead. and all left girl
children-there are two pairs of sisters
and a trio in the bunch. Granny is fat
and rich and fussy-worShipS the girls
and scolds them all the time. Fumes
because they don't marry out of hand
and insults outright every man who
dareS to go there counting. She in
dulgeS the bunch every way she can,
yet she never let's them feel their souls
are their own. Consequently they all
have the lovel:est manners in the world
even if En- and Ag were not pre-
destined to captivate you, you'd never
escape-the whole lot are so exactly
the sort of thing you like
How do you know Basil asked.
Lotto answered promptly. by this
token-they are exactly everything I
am not"
''Indeed!'' Basil said. stepping close
beside her She smiled provokingly,
Whereupon he kissed her.
AS she wiped her lips he looked at
her reproachfully, saying, mo girl ever
did that before-not right to my face"
You must remember, there are girls
and girls the same as you have been
telling me there are men and men,"
Lotte said over her shoulder, as she
Basil looked after her. divided be-
tween an impulse to follow and kiss
her again, and to swear at himself
roundly as fool.
He was five years her elder, had seen
the world at all angles, moreover was /
college bred, and a master of the art
of Irritation. He had come a fortnight |
back to see his fathers people-his |
father who had died, in the year he /
was born. His mother had married |
again, ard herself been drowned along |
with her new husband upon the we'd |
ding journey. It was thus Basil had |
come into so much money. His step
father had made him his heir, no less
his mother. He had stayed with her
people, quite apart from the Kings |
Formal letters had come yearly from |
his bachelor uncle and two maiden /
aunts, and been anSW cred as formally. |
In such fashion he had known of Miss
Charlotte Kings existence, but he had
never dreamed of her as factor in his
future when sudden within moved /
him to come back to his fathers native |
county.
Now. she was litheIy angular: she
had freckles and opinions both decided. I
Moreover she had no reverence for (
him. for anything masculine, it APP
Peared. Uncle Joseph even was her
Notwithstanding the rest
OF the world saw him a starch and /
parsonage. She was GER
tainly the life and soul of things. there |
in the old homestead. 1t had been /
borne in upon him further that she
was a coquette OF the first water; not a |
malicious one, but in a merry, sprite-
like fashion. At first the thought of it
had amused hil greatly. Latterly, he |
had been finding out that she was in
deed. when she chose to be, a worker
of charms.
They rode to the. Dale place at
headlong gallop. The afternoon was
like wine went to the
head. Basil tried hard to say things
as they rode, but Lotto would not lis
ten. She was in her widest spirits
and managed as soon as they were in
the big. dim parlor to get Basil an
cnored betwixt Emma and Agnes
while she herself sat at merry gossip
with Granny. the other five listening in
mute aOInlEdllous
Basil yearned to listen. too-any-
thing would be better than the pair
PAINFULLY entertaining him. They were
Just through reading the latest and
tritest 'sbest seller and eager to show
the stranger how much they had got
out of it,.
Il loved the book It is just like
Lotte=the love part. you know Agnes
gurgled at length
Basil looked politely puzzled. you'll
have to explain" he said. Il have
neither read the book nor heard Lot
ee's love story"
sWhy-you know-that is-AmabeI