Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-17

one of solid and Stolid magn1tcence.
It was a double house, red brick.
Georgian with a beautiful example OF
fan-light over the white doorway and
q side garden that walled in by red brick
overgrown with ivy to about the height of
man.
The street on which stood the Beverly man
y sion was also one of rather solid and stcld
magnihcence, old families in old homes, whose
children and grandchildren, and in one or two
instances, great-grandchildren, had been born
under the same roof.
It was the sort of street from which the
closed carriage and the pair of spanking BAY
horses had departed reluctantly, as it gave way
to the automobile 1t as If the double row
OF locust trees which shaded it had attempted
to form a barricade, shielding the quiet avenue
from the encroaching glare and hurry Of the
growing city.
THE Beverly sisters, Linda and Wanda, had
been born in the house they occupied They
were an example of great-grandchildren having
been born into the same house that had been
occupied by their forebears. 1t quiet,
austere household now, the entire lineage, in
Guiding the girls parents having died out.
There were only the two of them now pale
haired, pale-eyed, rather pale-mannered girls,
with the slender wrists and ankles that bespoke
good stock, and the repressed and careful bear
ings that bespoke good breeding.
There was portrait of the two girls, done IS
years before, when they had been IA and Is,
seated on a stone garden bench, small lap dog
between them. 1t had been painted during the
last year of their parents lives and an eff
v$ectve pair the girls presented. 1t is true that
the bill for that painting still continued TO
come at regular intervals, even during the fifth
year following the death of the paternal Bev-
erly. But then, so many bills continued to
rive at all too close intervals
What had happened was the not unusual pre-.
dcament of the heirs to supposedly large
fortune, finding that their inheritance had been
q myth.
Except for the elaborate home in which they
continued to dwell by untold scrimping and
sacrifice, the Beverly girls were practically
penniless It was cruel fight to keep. up ap-
pearances in that top-lofty looking mansion.
There were no servants, not even a gardener.
It was inevitable, of course, that people should
know that the Beverly girls had not inherited
the large fortune that had been expected. But
no one in town. and miraculouSly no one on that
pretentious street, knew to what extent these
two girls secretly struggled to keep up the pre-
tense of even Semi-affuence.
One by one, certain art objects of value had
disappeared from the house; paintings, silver,
worries and bronZes. 1t was said in the neigh
borhood that the peculiar thing about the Bev-
ery girls was that although they went about
socially practically not at all, they seemed to
sleep the greater part of the day. That was
true, but for a pathetic reason. It was after
the shades of night had fallen that Linda and
Wanda ventured to do the house and garden
work which there were no other hands to carry
on. Under cover of darkness one could wash
Windows, scrub steps, scour the beautiful fan
light the entrance, weed and spade and
dig in the garden
The Beverly girls were night workers all
corniceS and even, one Spring, painted the
entire length of pergolas and trellises in the
garden without being detected in the act
of manual labor
The degree to which they were old-fashioned
and pathetically SnVbbiSh never dawned upon
these two girls. They had been bred in an
atmosphere Of artificial gentility. They knew
no other standards.