`` I am much obliged to you for coming to tell me about Jane , '' said Miss Rosetta , `` even though you have wasted a lot of precious time getting it out . If it had n't been for you I suppose I should never have known it at all . As it is , I shall start for town just as soon as I can get ready . '' `` You 'll have to hurry if you want to get ahead of Mrs. Wheeler , '' advised Mr. Patterson . `` She 's packing her trunk and going on the morning train . '' `` I 'll pack a valise and go on the afternoon train , '' retorted Miss Rosetta triumphantly . `` I 'll show Charlotte she is n't running the Ellis affairs . She married out of them into the Wheelers . She can attend to them . Jacob Wheeler was the most -- '' But Mr. Patterson had driven away . He felt that he had done his duty in the face of fearful odds , and he did not want to hear anything more about Jacob Wheeler . Rosetta Ellis and Charlotte Wheeler had not exchanged a word for ten years . Before that time they had been devoted to each other , living together in the little Ellis cottage on the White Sands road , as they had done ever since their parents ' death . The trouble began when Jacob Wheeler had commenced to pay attention to Charlotte , the younger and prettier of two women who had both ceased to be either very young or very pretty . Rosetta had been bitterly opposed to the match from the first . She vowed she had no use for Jacob Wheeler . There were not lacking malicious people to hint that this was because the aforesaid Jacob Wheeler had selected the wrong sister upon whom to bestow his affections . Be that as it might , Miss Rosetta certainly continued to render the course of Jacob Wheeler 's true love exceedingly rough and tumultuous . The end of it was that Charlotte had gone quietly away one morning and married Jacob Wheeler without Miss Rosetta 's knowing anything about it . Miss Rosetta had never forgiven her for it , and Charlotte had never forgiven the things Rosetta had said to her when she and Jacob returned to the Ellis cottage .
Since then the sisters had been avowed and open foes , the only difference being that Miss Rosetta aired her grievances publicly , XXXXX season and out of season , while Charlotte was never heard to mention Rosetta 's name .
As Before If about from in on since that to