Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-10-06
Evening Story
sTEPHANIE's SISTER sARAt
BY A. Maria Crawford.
Copyright, 1913, by the Mcclure
Newspaper Syndicate.)


years in Europe" said Stephanie Mar
tin to the latest and most attractive
of her admirers. "Of course | know
that you won't like her. She is rather
plain and dreadfully learned. Billy
Bruce says that the reason Sarah is an
old maid is because she is much too
clever for any man in our set"
"Your mother looks very young to
have an old maid daughter" said
TONNES Gaines gallantly.
Sarah is twenty-five" confided the
sister of eighteen summers. Father
and mother are quite ~reconciled now
to the fact that Sarah will not be mar
ried."
Townes Gaines ~meditatively flicked
the ashes from his cigar. He had
taken the girl out sleighing and later
had accepted her mothers cordial in
vitation to stop for dinner. When he
had met Stephanie the night before,
at a big dance in a fashionable club
house, something in the pretty young
face had stirred his fancy and set him
to dreaming like a boy. Of course he
would never see her again, the n
girl, the memory of whom was the fra
grant garden spot of his thought.
Stephanie was like her in a way. That
was why she had attracted him. She
had the same wavy brown hair, the
same white brow, but the eyes were
different. There had been a depth of
expression in the girls blue eyes that
would never be seen in Stephanie's
brown ones.
The music of a sweet toned violin
sounded somewhere above the draw
ing room, rousing the man from his
reverie.
Fathers playing walked you up. I
thought you were going to Sleep"
laughed Stephanie. "You sat there so
quietly. staring straight in the fire."
mot to talk is a SUIT sign that a
woman is asleep, but such signs fail
when it comes to judging a man."
IT expect you were thinking of some
big deal on Wall street.
mo, I was not thinking of bust
ness"
"Some girl them"
The majestic strains of Handlers
beautiful Largo" flooded the room
with melody. The girls voice the
night she had told him good-by was
sweet and deep-toned like the mellow
music that came from the bit of
stringed rosewood overhead.
"You are right" acknowledged
TONNES Gaines slowly. Il was think
ing of a girl. You remind me just a
little of her."
WAS she pretty and were YOU in
love with herr
"she was lovely and I am still in
love with her."
ssrho%,- p&orocfipc DOrfod Go.
phanie, "but disappointing. Frank
ly, I am sorry that you are not eli
gible. You entertain me-"
"You are fiattering. Why am l not
%eligible?"
"An engaged man is out of the
market"
T'Well, I'm not engaged. Gaines
smiled at the coquetry Of the girl
before him. If she were his, he re-
aected, she would be in school get
ting some knowledge tucked away
under that mass of brown curls.
"You confessed that you loved her.
you will be engaged"
''That doesn't necessarily follow.
Perhaps she doesn't love me-"
with all your money and good
looks" Stephanie declared, shell be
willing enough to take your NAME"
Gaines reflected hat the oncom-
ing generation would probably learn
to say money before it said daddy.
It was certainly a commercial era
when a young girl of eighteen
thought nothing of a mans love and
everything of his fortune.
81 wouldn't marry any woman who
didn't love me-"
my, but you're o~ld-fashioned!
That's the way Sarah talked. Now
she's an old maid"
"Not at twenty-five! She's just
old enough to have some about
matrimony."
"You take life too seriously-the
way father does, Mr.. Gaines. I am
not surprised at him because he be-
longs to the past, but you, you are a
part of the present and you'll have to
adapt yourself to changed conditions
What s~uffragette has been lectur-
ing in the city this week."
"You needn't laugh. I'm not voic-
ing somebody else's sentiments. I
have thought out these things for
myself"
Indeed" said Gaines, adroitly lead
ing her on to further revelations of
the advanced thinking of eighteen.
when father was young, people
married for love because life was less
and they didn't have to
consider the commercial problems of
today. Competition surrounds a man
He has no time to fall in love.
He simply picks out an attractive girl
who will do him credit in public and
marries her"
"And the girl?'
well, she has other things to think
about besides a love sick boy. Life is
complicated for her, too. What with
culture and bridge clubs, l%uncheons,
teas, dinners and the opera, she is
busy all the time and simply marries
to have somebody to attend to her
financial affairs. Domesticity is a
thing of the long ago."
"You are too wise for me-"
The music overhead had taken on
the staccato notes Of Dvorak's HUI
and TONNES Gaines mind !
fingered once more in his garden of
things. The quick notes
of the violin recalled the freflies that