"Nope. Not really. No thanks," were their replies.

Christian grinned broadly and clapped them both on the backs. "Excellent. That's the spirit! I knew you'd say yes."

And so they had. At least for a while.

A slower song began to play, and a harmonica joined the mournful strains of the violin. Couples took to the dance floor, chasing away the children, who were content to eat and run and chase fireflies instead of dance.

Lindsay's low voice broke their trance. "Are you having a nice birthday?"

"Mmm..." Ginny murmured, looking at down to her wrist and at the bracelet Lindsay had woven out of thin strips of leather and given to her as a gift. She wouldn't have loved it more if it were made of spun gold."It's best one ever."

Lindsay nodded, satisfied.

"Do you think Jane will miss her doll? She sent us back to get it quite a while ago."Ginny held up what had become her sister's favorite toy. She yawned.

"Probably," Lindsay said placidly, leaning backwards and taking Ginny with her until they were looking up into a sky bright with twinkling stars and heavy with possibilities.

A star streaked across the sky."Make a wish, Sweet Pea," Ginny said lazily, snuggling closer to Lindsay with a contented sigh. She felt the body next to hers shake with silent laughter and heard the smile in Lindsay's voice as she spoke.

"Nah. I'll save the star for someone down there." She gestured aimlessly to the gathering below then turned her head and pressed her lips against Ginny's soft hair."My wish already came true."

Postscript.

Precious moments stretched into years and as in all lifetimes the unexpected came to call more than once. It was all the moments between the big events, however, that spanned the decades and formed the memories that brought tears of joy and tears of pain.

Christian Spence remained a confirmed bachelor his entire life. His first love would always be the children who needed him most, and for that, as well as his kind and gentle spirit, he would never be forgotten. Upon his death in 1929, a plaque bearing these simple words was mounted on the face of the Society for the Betterment of Children: Father to Hundreds, You Will Be Missed.

Ginny and Lindsay attended the dedication.

After being indicted for fraud and a host of other charges, Jeremiah and Isabelle Ward were released on bond. Isabelle fled to Canada and finally Italy where she lived the remainder of her days as a wealthy vineyard owner's mistress. Broken after his wife's abandonment and unwilling to face further public humiliation, Jeremiah attempted suicide in 1891 and was placed in an asylum for the insane. He remained committed for the next seven years. Despite overwhelming evidence, the charges against Isabelle were eventually dropped. After his release from the asylum, Jeremiah Ward disappeared into obscurity.

James Robson became an elementary school teacher. After pining for the blacksmith's daughter throughout most of his childhood, he set out on a campaign to convince the pretty girl to marry him. Much to Lewis and Lindsay's amusement, over the two-year courtship James was forced to resort to singing and poetry as a means to capture his would-be bride. It was, however, when Ginny suggested good old-fashioned begging that James was finally successful. He and his wife Maria were married for sixty-four years. They settled in San Marcos, and had four daughters.

James became an outspoken advocate for women's suffrage. An avid baseball fan and a star high school athlete, he coached a city league well into his 70s and took San Marcos to the State Championships no less than sixteen times. Losing every time.

Lewis Robson never became a veterinarian, though he spent many happy summers with his second family, the Bergquists, learning the trade. When he was twenty-five, Lewis entered a country diner just outside of Dallas, Texas, and met waitress Annie Mae Price. They were married the next month. The following year, they were blessed with headstrong twin boys that Lindsay and Ginny swore were he and James all over again.

Lewis tried his hand at several careers before excelling in the military. On Oct. 13, 1918, less than a month before the treaty of Versailles, Captain Lewis A. Robson fell on a battlefield in France during the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He was 36 years old. His letters home, detailing everyday life in the trenches, were compiled and published by his oldest son in 1950.To this very day, it is a bestseller in San Marcos' several bookstores After seeing Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show perform in Austin in 1904, Jane Gable set her sights on becoming a performer. In 1907 she joined a traveling theater troupe, much to Laura and Calvin's horror and Ginny and Lindsay's secret delight. After three years, during which she saw most of the United States and Canada and, according to Ginny, sowed more wild oats than an entire herd of cattle had a right to, Jane set her sights on another goal. Eventually, she earned her degree in English from the Texas State College for Women in Denton, Texas, and went to work for the San Marcos newspaper. At 33, the self-proclaimed late bloomer fell in love with and married the paper's editor. They had one daughter named Lindsay Alice.

Jane spent her golden years happily spinning yarns of her days on the stage and the colorful men and women in her life. She lived to be 92.

Lindsay and Ginny worked on and off at San Marcos' orphanage for many years. To nearly everyone's surprise, it was Lindsay who had a way with the children and Ginny who kept the books and took care of the business of the house. But running an orphanage was Christian's calling, not theirs. In 1905, with a loan of $275 from the local bank, they opened a small brewery that was an abject failure. In 1907, and armed with a different recipe, they tried again. The business was an instant success and soon the profits allowed the women to indulge in their two biggest passions, travel and each other. In the eyes of the State of Texas neither woman ever had children or ever married. Sometimes government is blind.

They were fondly regarded as contributing members of the community and eccentric spinsters. Which was just fine by them.

Together, they found a happiness in San Marcos and each other that was much more profound than either one of the young women on the grassy hill in late spring of 1890 could have imagined, much less understood. But the town was still small and there were times when it simply couldn't hold them.

It would be easy to assume that the string of events set into motion immediately following the fire on Orchard Street and the happenings of a certain rat pit in Queens constituted Virginia Chisholm and Lindsay Killian's greatest adventure. That assumption would be dead wrong. It wasn't even their second greatest adventure.

Riding the rails and midnight rescues, while romantic-sounding and exciting, aren't the stuff that real life is made of, at least not on a regular basis. Ginny and Lindsay's greatest adventure wasn't bringing their family together, it was the living and loving that happened everyday that kept them together.

end.