“Why, weren’t there plenty of suitors?” asked I.
“I guess there was only one for both of us—and his name was Hiliary,” smiled the frail one.
Then she went on:
“One night Hiliary was here, and sis and I were sitting in these two chairs, close together, as if we were afraid of him (we always sat that way when he was here). I remember that I had on my blue-flowered delaine, and sis had on her black Swiss with the green sprigs in it, just as we are in that first daguerreotype at the left-hand corner of the parlor mantel. Hiliary had just shown sis one of the new coins of 1857.
“‘Well,’ he laughed, ‘I want to marry one of you girls, but hanged if I know which one to ask. You are both mighty lovely. I believe I’ll turn Mormon.’
“But I thought he shied off toward sis there as he said it, and I never felt so lonely in my life as I did for a second or two then.
“‘Now, you are taller than sis, here, but she is plumper—and I like both. Your eyes are the same—there is no choice there. But sis’s hair is a bit redder—and I like that. It shows a spirit. And I don’t want to be the whole thing when I marry. But you are extravagant,’ he said to me, ‘and I don’t like that, because I’m poor, and a wife must help her husband to get along.’
“I thought again that he moved a bit more toward sis, there—who was hiding the coin.
“Just then sis cried: ‘Heads for me, tails for sis. Which is it? Hurry! hurry!’
“‘All right,’ said Hiliary, laughing.