The Marietta journal. (Marietta, Ga.) 1918-1944, 1920-08-06
A Special
Providence
By MARTHA M. WILLIAMS

Jessup moaned, dropping his head in
his hands.
$50 you could spend 1t putting
frills on folly already quite sufficient"
his sister Prue answered stormilv. but
with glimmer of fun breaking
through the storm. 1--WE wondered
all along why you didn't ask her TO
adopt you as an older son instead of
to marry you. Ever so much more
suitable"
Shut up, will you!" Jessup cried
teNRly. He was hard put to it to
keep from swearing. Prue, his twin,
his pal from cradle days, was in most
things wholly privileged. But not in
all. She must not basphen1e his
grand passion for a goddess of whom
no man could be quite worthy any
more than he could be quite insensible
to her charm.
The years between? What did
they matter? Love laughed at Time
even more than at locksmiths. Her
soul was vernal as the first flowers of
spring in spite of loutish lad some
thing taller than Jessup himself and
three daughters all in the stage of gig
gle and squeal. Kipling's Venus An
nodomim over again, he thought pas
sfonately-only she had not frittered
away her widowed years in endless
fiirtations.
Instead she had been a model moth
er, close student of deep things, and
as such the inspiration of sundry up-
lift movements upon the part of three
rectOrs who had come into the Gurley
millions-given in fee, because, said
the testator. he knew they would be
put to good use.
Since she had never known pinch
ing poverty the money had not gone
to her head. Rather to her feet-she
admitted openly that she loved dane
ing even better than good works, and
now that she was rich enough to in
dulge her whims, took her fill of it
when and how she chose.
Thus Jessup had come in-she had
found him "a divine partner" and had
not hesitated to dance with him the
newest measures-a privilege refused
to all Others. "Ihe dearest fellow!
So handsome, so gallant, with-well,
don't know how to call it better than
such way" she cooed to disapprov-
ing dOwagers. To the girls she
eclipsed she said blandly he was a
Knight of the Round Table, born out
of time and to be priced and used ac-
cordingly.
That had made Prue foam at the
mouth - metaphOrically, of course.
she was too well bred to say, even to
look. what she felt. The joint birth
day to the contrary Notwithstanding,
she was years beyond her brother in
world-wisdom: further, she had the
intuitive feminine comprehension of
another woman.
Mrs. Vane was giving rein now to
youthful eXuberances, suppressed by
an early marriage, crowding children.
and the careful economies made neces-
sary by their needs To speak col
loquially, she was having her fling
having it good and plenty. Prue had
been unwise enough to voice her I'M
derstanding of the fact to Jessup, say
ing loftily: "She has had always to
stay outside the toy shop windows,
go :: Is as; strange that now when she
is up front inside, she is rather
greedy"
"No! Generous - in everything"
JeSsup had interrupted. Prue had
nodded: That's so! Then | wonder
is she collecting articles of bigotry
and virtue such as young men, to
parcel out later among her girls?"
Then Jessup had actually sworn
out loud and flung away to stay over
the week end Mrs. Vane had asked
him to spend it at Brook Burn. He
went thither in Cupid's rosiest airship
with all the doves of Venus circling
above. He came away leadenly, ac-
companied by glooms in such legions
that had they been ponderable he
would have been heavily mulcted for
excess baggage.
They weighed only upon his spirit,
but were plainly visible to sisterly
eyes. Mercifully she had waited for
the period of the after-dinner cigar
to let him know she knew-and that
by look, not words.
Something in it melted his hard
resolve of silence. Brokenly, now
and then gulping, he had told her of
his discontinue. His goddess was
still a goddess, but there doomed be-
tween the awful shadow of another,
man almost elderly, fat, plump, even
pudgy. who chuckled the gigglers each
under their chins, and spoke to Jessup
unctuously as "son." The wedding
was set for next month. q.
Mrs. vane, smiling and blushing
beautifully, had asked Jessup to be
chief usher, adding that he was the
very first among her friends to hear
the news. Do it? Of course--if 1t
killed him. That is to say, If he man.
90 nNhnn hn had