News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1921-10-12
Sisters
by
KATHLEEN
NORRIS
SYNOPSIS.
Cepyright By Kathleen Nsrrls


aAlix and Cherry, the latter just eighteen
Strickland, retired, is living at MN Val
thing Of recluse. Visiting In the vi
Elnity, Martin Lloyd. mining engineer.
Salls In love with and secretly becomes
engaged to Cherry.
CHAPTER II-While the family is
specializing as 70 Lloyds Intentions. Cher.
ny brings him to supper, practically an
Eounctng her engagement to him.
CHAPTER 1II.-Doctor Strickland feels
MCherry is too young to marry and urges
her to wait at least year, but the girl
%coaxes him into agreeing to an immediate
wedding and the ceremony takes place,
mhe couple leaving at once for Ell Nido.
where Martin Is employed.
CHAPTER Iv.-The honeymoon days
over, Cherry begins to feel vague dis
satisfaction with Martin and the monot-
sony of her daily life.
CHAPTER Vat Mill Valley, Justin
little, lawyer, becomes engaged to Anne,
1fhe wedding being set for September.
some H m M}dt distant AiX visits Cherry
hin into allowing Cherry to go home for
-Annes wedding.
CHAPTER Win her fathers house
Ihere with her rather sordid existence at
Ell Nido and realizes that her marriage
has been something of a failure Doctor
Strickland feeling that Cherry is not be-
ing falr to Martin, in that she is unduly
prolonging her visit after Anne's we'd
ding urges her to return to her husband.
she makes preparations for her departure.
CHAPTER vII.-Peter Joyce tells Cher
ny he has had one grand passion in his
aife, but the woman was not for him. He
does not reveal her name. Cherry reioins
her husband.
well, Lord" he exclaimed. Don't
you think everybody does? Don't
get sick of ms york? You ought to
have the responsibility of it all for
"a while!"
His tone was humorously reproving
rather than unkind. But such
speech would fill Cherrys eyes with
tears and cause her to go about the
house all morning with heavy
heart.
She would find herself looking
thoughtfully at Martin in these days,
studying him as if he were an utter
stranger. 1t bew,dpr"d her to feel
that he actually was 10 more than
that, after two years of marriage. She
not only did not know him, but she
had baffled sense that the very
nearness of their union prevented her
from seeing him fairly. She knew that
she did him injustice in her thoughts.
1t must be injustice, decided Cherry.
For Martin seemed to her less clever,
Jess just, less intelligent, and less
generous than the average man of her
acquaintance. And yet he did not
seem to impress other people in the
way he impressed her.
He was extraordinarily healthy, and
mad small sympathy for Illness weak
mess, for the unfortunate, and the
complaining. He whistled over his
dressing, read the paper at breakfast,
and was gone. At noon he rushed in,
always late devoured his lunch ap-
preciatively, and was gone again. At
night he was usually tired, inclined to
quarrel about small matters, inclined
ito disapprOve of the new positions of
tthe bedroom furniture, or the way
tCherry's hair was dressed.
He loved to play poker and was hos
!pitable to certain extent. He would
whistle and joke over the prepara-
'tions for rareblt after a game, and
would willingly walk five blocks for
beer If Cherry had forgotten to get it. |
On Sunday he liked to see her prettily |
goWned; now and then they motored |
with his friends from the mine; more |
often walked, ate a hearty chicken |
dinner and went to a cold supper in |
fhe neighborhood, with give Hun
rdred" to follow. At ten their hostess |
would fiutter into her kitchen; there |
mOuld be lemonade and beer and rich |
layer cake. Then the men would be- |
gin to match poker hands, land the
women to discuss babies In low tones.
Cherry never saw her husband so |
,animated or so interested as when
emen he had known before CHANGED to
drift into town, mining men from Ne
'vada or from Ell Nido, or men he had
known in college. They would dis
.cuss personalities, would shout over
recollected good times, would slap |
each other on the back and laugh
firelessly.
She thought him an extremely diff
cult man to live with, and was angered
when her hints to this effect led him
to remark that she was the '1lmit"
They had a serious quarrel one day,
when he told her that she was the
most selfish and spoiled woman he
had ever known. He called her at
tention to the other women of the
town, busy, contented women, sending
children of to school, settling babies
down for maps in sunny dooryards,
cooking and laughing and hurrylng to
and fro.
Yes and look at themw Cherry
said with ready tears. shabby, thin,
tired all the time !"
THE trouble with you is" Martin
said, departing, you've been told that
you're pretty and sweet all your life
and you're spoiled You are pretty,