LOVER'S DILEMMA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

LOVER'S DILEMMA.

YOUTH WHO LOVED TWIN SISTERS. From America comes an extremely entertaining story concerning the embarrassments of a young man who eloped with twin sisters. Of course, young Merle :- Aiken, that was his name, had, no bigamous designs • the whole trouble arose out of the remarkable resemblance of the twins the one to the .other. /To this day. young Mr. Aiken , of Binghampton, could not tell' whether it was Mima or Minna Naylor with whom he was so madly in love. The girls were 18, alike as two peas in a pod, equally pretty and chic, and altogether irresistibly attractive. Of course the sisters were immensely fond of each other, as twins usually are. But that was before young Mr. Aiken came to Binghampton. He was from Massachusetts, and he seemed to have a. bit more polish than the Binghampton boys. And when he met the pretty Naylor twins he was smitten immediately. Their invitation to call was accepted promptly. And then the trouble began. The twins for the first time in all their 18 years quarrelled while they were arranging to receive^young Mr. Aiken on his first call. "He asked me if he could call,", insisted ■ Mima. " That's not so," retorted Minna. "He asked me. And, anyway, if he didn't, he meant to." "He didn't," snapped Mima., At first the attentions of the young man were the family joke. He was so impartial with his bunches of violets and his boxes of bonbons that nobody guessed he was. really in . love. ; For how could any well-balanced young man be in love with two pretty girls at one and the same time? But it was no longer a joke when Minna spoke out very plainly: about Mima at the table. 1 "You went down town and Waited for him to-day," she burst out to the astonishment of the whole family. "He meant to'meet me. You know you did. And you made Merle think that you were I when he met you. Mima was furious. For weeks she and her sister had hardly spoken. -But young Mr. Aiken kept on calling, and it was a case surely, of .. How happy: could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away. / But open rupture came when Minna resolved to outwit her sister and enjoy the society of their common wooer by herself alone. ■ • ■ : :-" -. , - • ■ , -PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT. '--/ She telephoned to young Mr. Aiken and asked him to take her to the matinee next day. He was only too glad, and he was then told to write a formal note of invitation that she might show it to her mother. But artful little Minna told Aiken that it was Mima on the 'phone, and Mima got the invitation, overjoyed at having won out over her sister, whose little plot she never suspected. Then clever Minna telephoned to young Mr. Aikin that she couldn't go, and asked, him to call instead. The young man said he would. "I'm going to the matinee," announced Mima, with just a little.note, of triumph in her voice. "I am to meet Merle." " I hope you will have a nice time," said her sister. But no Mr. Aiken appeared at the meeting-place. Instead he was calling at the house on the clever Minna. When Mima got home, indignant at having waited so long in vain, she discovered her sister's little game and there was war at once. Then Mr. / and Mrs. Naylor interfered and told young Aiken that he would have to stop seeing then daughters. " All right," said he. But the sisters wouldn't stand for .that. Each one thought that the other was meeting him on the sly. And each was determined not to be' beaten. The result was that' both met him at least once a week, away from their : home. ; / Now comes the strangest part of it all. Young Aiken was really in love, and proposed to Minna to elope. She agreed; Then he met Mima, and, speaking about their plans without thinking it was / the other sister, gave the whole : thing -away. And Mima, determined to win the/goodI looking young fellow anyway, made up her mind to do the eloping, instead of revenging herself upon Mini, by telling their par- ; ents. Minna and her bridegroom had planned, to go to Alban, get married there,; and hurry on to New York for their, honeymoon. Mima changed this and sent word to their common fiance to meet her on a train .between Troy and Albany. ■> Each of the twins : thought she had captured the quarry Both i boarded the same train for Albany. Neither ■; saw the other. At Troy young Mr/jAikeh came on-board; to- seek out his bride.to-be. , Each -sister saw.) him and.: awaited, with . thrills of expectancy and hope—to .say nothing of a tiny; little bit of triumph. The ' i would-be bridegroom found Minna .first. There they sat in the car holding hands and fretting that the train wasn't fast enough [to take them to a '.clergyman. to make' them one. And then came . Mima./ But"; young Aiken took matters in his own hands while the two sisters were upbraiding each other. He excused himself for a moment when the train slowed down, snatched suit-case, ; leaped from the platform, and disappeared.