er fancy and she will
repeat it to herself until I am almost driven to madness. Sometimes it
is only a word, but it seems to have a fascination for her and she rolls
it as a sweet morsel under her tongue until sleep puts an end to it.

Again, if I (the combination) fall ill, one part of me, I have never
discovered which, invariably hints that I am not ill at all but merely
pretending. So much so that it has become with me a recognized symptom
of incipient illness.

Moreover, the younger and older are never on the same side of any
question. One leans to wisdom, the other to fun. I am a house divided
against itself. The younger longs to dance, to go to the theater and to
play cards, all of which the older disapproves. The younger mocks the
older, calls her a hypocrite and the like until the older well-nigh
believes it herself and almost yields to her pleadings. The older
listens sedately to the sermon, while the younger plans her Easter suit
or makes fun of the preacher.

The older declares she will never marry, while the younger scouts the
idea of being an old maid. But even if she could gain the consent of the
older, it were but little better, they differ so as to their ideals.

In society the difference is more marked. I seem to be a combination
chaperone and protegee. The older appears at ease, the younger shy and
awkward--she has never made her debut. If one addresses a remark to her
she is thrown into utter confusion until the older rushes to the rescue.
My sympathy is with the younger, however, for even to this day I, the
combination, can scarce resist the temptation to say nothing when there
is nothing to say.

There is something tragic to me in this Siamese-twins arrangement of two
so uncongenial. I am at one and the same time pupil and teacher,
offender and judge, performer and critic, chaperone and protegee, a
prim, precise, old maid and a rollicking schoolgirl, a tomboy and a
prude, a saint and sinner. What can result from such a combination? That
we get on tolerably is a wonder. Some days, however, we get on admirably
together, part of me paying compliments to the other part of me--whole
days being given to this--until each of us has such a good opinion of
herself and the other that we feel on equal terms and are at our
happiest.

But how dreadful are the days when we turn against each other! There are
not words enough to express the contempt which we feel for ourselves. We
seem to set each other in th