IT was decided, by their mother of course, that Catharine and Emily would take French lessons that summer, since the opportunity of having an actual Frenchwoman teach them might not come again, even when they got to college, where Catharine was bound in two more years, and Emily a year later, if she would go.

Emily was to have painting lessons, as well. Catharine did not want them, had never shown the slightest talent or interest. Emily was the pretty and artistic one, Catharine was the bright one. She had heard her mother say that to a neighbor once, and had gone to the mirror to stare at her brown face and light hair, to see wherein she was not as pretty as Emily.

What had decided them was the small advertisement in the Runnels County Weekly: