would probably dictate no change in its structural details.  It sufficed.  It was, moreover, a nose of good lines, according to conventional canons.  It was shapely, and from its high bridge jutted forward with rather a noble sweep of line to the thin, curved nostrils.  The high bridge was perhaps the detail that distinguished it from most good noses.  It seemed to begin to be a nose almost from the base of the brow.  In a world of all Whipple noses this family would have been remarked for its beauty.  In one of less than Whipple noses—­with other less claimant designs widely popularized—­it might be said that the Whipple face would be noted rather for distinction than beauty.

In oblique profile the Wilbur twin could glance across the fronts in turn of Harvey D. Whipple, of Gideon Whipple, his father; of Sharon Whipple, his uncle; and of Juliana Whipple, sole offspring of Sharon.  The noses were alike.  One had but to look at Miss Juliana to know that in simple justice this should have been otherwise.  She might have kept a Whipple nose—­Whipple in all essentials—­without too pressing an insistence upon bulk.  But it had not been so.  Her nose was as utterly Whipple as any.  They might have been interchanged without detection.

The Wilbur twin stared and speculated upon and mildly enjoyed this display, until a species of hypnotism overtook him, a mercifully deadening inertia that made him slumberous and almost happy.  He could keep still at last, and be free from the correcting hand of Mrs. Penniman or the warning prod of the judge’s elbow.  He dozed in a smother of applied godliness.  He was delighted presently to note with an awakening start that the sermon was well under way.  He heard no word of this.  He knew only that a frowning old gentleman stood in a high place and scolded about something.  The Wilbur twin had no notion what his grievance might be; was sensible only of his heated aspect, his activity in gesture, and the rhythm of his phrases.

This influence again benumbed him to forgetfulness, so that during the final prayer he was dramatizing a scene in which three large and savage dogs leaped upon Frank and Frank destroyed them—­ate them up.  And when he stood at last for the doxology one of his feet had veritably gone to sleep, the one that had been cramped back under the seat, so that he stumbled and drew unwelcome attention to himself while the foot tingled to wakefulness.

The ever-tractable Merle had been attentive to the sermon, had sung beautifully, and was still immaculate of garb, while the Wilbur twin emerged from the ordeal in rank disorder, seeming to have survived a scuffle in which efforts had been made to wrench away his Sunday clothes and to choke him with his collar and cravat.  And the coating of soap had played his hair false.  It stood out behind and stood up in front, not with any system, but merely here and there.

“You are a perfect sight,” muttered Winona to him.  “I don’t see how you do it.”  But neither did the offender.