New Britain herald., 1926-12-31

"Ill answer it, Mollie | head.
 | Grief seemed to affect them equal ly; it laid as heavy hand, appar- | cntly, on the one who was still noth- ing moro than @ pal" as it did on Jim's betrothed.
 And Mollie Elwcll, looking on ! through the eyes Of mother love now intensified and softencd the more by reason of her own great sorrow, asked herself again and again the question that had been in her mind ever since that night in June before Jim went away.
 Which was the girl Jim had loved as q pal and q sweetheart, too? And which the girl that had loved him as a woman loves a lover? Or did they both love him in the same way IL seemed impossible, she told her self, that such a condition could exist when both were, without ques- tion, wholly devoted to each other, And so the question remained un- answered. So far as Moilic could see-and she saw much-cach girl was the girl of whom Jim had spoken that last night out there in the flickering moonlight beneath the clms. And still she knew that couldn't be true either. And yet
 Both Rusty and Betty would talk for hours at time of the cemetery over there in France of which they had read in the newspapers where thirty thousand American soldiers lay buried in the heart of great battle field.
 This city of the dead they told each other, held the grave in which their Jim lay sleeping under inc sod where the ponies grew. And that grave, MoIlie Elwell was beginning to believe more and more as the weeks merged into months, held the hearts Of both the girls.
 Not once did NIolie let her lips speak the question that was in her mind She had promised Jim and she would keep that promise. As for the girls, if they wanted to tell her it was all right, and she would let it make no difference in her love for thcm. Jim had been so foolish in that regard. -. Dear, tender
 The girls threshed this out one day themselves.
 DO you suppose" Rusty asked that We ought to tell Nellie our secret"
 Betty shook her head. "Not yet. Some day, dcar but not now.'
 Rusty sighed. Poor Jim. Who else but Jim ever would have thought of eyacting such prom ise.' She began to cry.
 Betty patted her shoulder. "Thore, there, now" she soothcd. "Wen just wait, dear, and some day the proper time will some for telling Mollie. But not now. Don't you think I'm right"
 "Of course,' Rusty sighed. T just wanted 10 be sure"
 This was how it was that Mollie F,lwcll was kept in ignorance of which girl it was that Jim Elwell had loved. But never q word on the subject from her. She and Prof wondered at times, too, whether anything ever would come out of that strange meeting Jim and the girls had had with that woman in Chicago. Prof had written. as Jim had suggested, to Nina Kingsley's address in New York. But the letter had come back.
 But Dame Destiny did hold some- thing elsc in store for these two girls whose mothers name had re- nained such a mystery these years. She held the ends of the broken threads of their lives, and those ends she was beginning to pick up even then in a hospital over in the capital city of Indiana.
 Rusty FlWell rose from the dining room table in response 10 ring at the front door.
 "fl answer it, Mollin dear" she said quickly and crossed through 10 the sitting room and 10 tho door looking out on inc porch.
 A glance through the glass pancs disclosed 10 her q man of fifty or thcrcabouts, a stranger to her He was well dressed in gray suit and black oyercoat and carried in one hand what appeared to be an attor- noys brief case. She opened the door. The man raised his hat, smiled in friendly fashion and bowed
 'I was told" he said, that this is where Edwin Elwell lives" His keen eyes seemed 10 express some thing of surprise and admiration as they took in he pretty face and form of the girl 'Is he at home"
 'Why-ycs. sir. Do you wish to sec him 9" Rusty answered with just q shade of curiosity cdging her tone, and then, remembering herself, she added Wont you come in@"
 The stranger thqnkcd her and stepped into the room,
 Here is my card" ho went on with another keen glance at Rusty