Bright with intelligence and fair and smooth;
Her eyebrow's shape was the aerial bow,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth
Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow,
As if her veins ran lightning.
Two sisters more unlike in character and tastes it would be almost impossible to discover. Fanny, the elder, lacked not only Virginia's good looks, and also her brains. Yet she was good-natured and easy-going, and, as long as she had her own way, managed to get along with everybody. She went through the lower grades of public school, but did not shine as a particularly bright pupil, evincing little love for books, and shirking study when possible. Her fondness for amusement and her uncultivated taste also led to her associating habitually with companions beneath her socially. She was a thoroughly good girl. A vulgar allusion would have shocked her, an impertinence she would have quickly resented; yet she seemed of a coarser fibre than the rest of the family, the reason for which, seeing that both girls had equal advantages and opportunities, only an expert psychologist could explain. She had gone through school mechanically as an unpleasant task to be gotten over with as soon as possible, taking no interest in her work, and when she came out her brain was a sluggish and unresponsive as one might expect. Well aware of her shortcomings, she made light of them, insisting laughingly that she was the dunce of the family and Virginia its genius. She would do the drudgery of housekeeping while her sister went to college.
There was no bitterness, no jealousy in this apparent rivalry. Fanny was devoted to her little sister and proud of her cleverness. She declared that one day Virginia would make a brilliant marriage and then she could pay it all back. That Virginia should ultimately go to college had been fully determined on. Everything attracted her to a liberal education. She was ambitious; she craved knowledge and showed talent in almost everything—in music, composition, painting. To her a liberal education would mean everything—the widening of her mental horizon, the initiation into keen, intellectual delights. No matter what sacrifice was to be made, to college the girl should go. So declared the parents.
Now all was changed. This blow which robbed her of her father also shattered her hopes for the future. All this flashed through Virginia's mind as they sat there, waiting. Turning to her sister, she said through her tears:
"If the worst happened—Fan—if Dad died—we couldn't go on living here, could we?"
Fanny shook her head. Sagely she replied: