“I was eight years older than my sister Ethel, my little Pansy. There had been others, but they all died in infancy, and we two were the only ones left when our parents were taken. That was when Ethel was fourteen and I twenty-two.
“I tried to be a mother to her. I was very fond of her, yet now I can see that I always cared more for my own happiness than for hers—always wanted to be first, and to rule her.
“We lived in Jefferson, Indiana, a mere village, to which the family had removed shortly before the death of our father; he and mother went very near together, both dying of congestive chills. We were left with a little home of our own and a modest competence, and we continued to keep house, a middle-aged woman who had been in the family from the time of my birth matronizing us and taking the oversight of domestic affairs.”
Madame Le Conte paused for breath, and Ethel said softly, “Aunt, you have never told me the family name; it seems odd enough that I should never have heard it—my own mother’s maiden name.”
“Gramont—Nannette and Ethel Gramont we were called, and I have always thought them very pretty names.”
Again the Madame paused for a moment. Her voice trembled slightly as she resumed:
“It was something more than a year after we were left alone in the world that Rolfe Heywood came to Jefferson and opened a dry-goods store. He was a fine-looking, gentlemanly fellow, some twenty three or four years old, I should think, well educated, of agreeable manners, and rather fond of ladies’ society.
“I was pleased with him, and the liking seemed to be mutual. He became a frequent visitor at our house, and soon the girls began to tease me about him. He was said to be paying attention to me, and indeed I think he was at first, and I gave him some little encouragement—not much, for I had several suitors, and was naturally inclined to coquetry; but I liked Rolfe Heywood best of all. I think partly because I was less sure of him than of the others, and that piqued my vanity and pride.
“He did not offer himself, but kept on coming to the house and making himself very much at home there. And so things went on for nearly two years, when all at once I discovered that it was Ethel he admired and wanted. She was seventeen now, and a sweeter, prettier creature you never saw. Ah, my darling little Pansy!”
Tears rolled down the Madame’s cheeks. She hastily wiped them away.