The Wilbur twin was abashed and puzzled.  The detail most impressing him seemed to be that, having no longer a brother, he would cease to be a twin.  His life long he had been made intensely conscious of being a twin—­he was one of a pair—­and now suddenly, he gathered, he was something whole and complete in himself.  He demanded assurance on this point.

“Then I’m not going to be a twin any longer?  I mean, I’m not going to be one of a twins?  It won’t change my name, too, will it?”

His father enlightened him.

“No, there’s still a couple of Cowans left to keep the name going.  We won’t have to be small-towners unless we want to,” he added.

He suspected that the Wilbur twin felt slighted and hurt at being passed over, and would be needing comfort.  But it appeared that the severed twin felt nothing of that sort.  He was merely curious—­not wounded or envious.

“I wouldn’t want to change to a new name,” he declared.  “I’d forget and go back to the old one.”

He wanted to add that maybe his new dog would not know him under another name, but he was afraid of being laughed at for that.

“Merle never forgets,” said Winona.  “He will be a shining credit to his new name.”  She helped the chosen one to more jelly, which he accepted amiably.  “And he will be a lovely little brother to Patricia Whipple,” she fondly added.

This left the Wilbur twin cold.  He would like to have a pony, but he would not wish to be Patricia Whipple’s brother.  He now recalled her unpleasantly.  She was a difficult person.

“Give Merle another bit of the steak, Mother,” urged Judge Penniman.

The judge had begun to dwell upon his own new importance.  This thing made him by law a connection of the Whipple family, didn’t it?  He, Rufus Tyler Penniman, had become at least a partial Whipple.  He reflected pleasantly upon the consequences.

“Will he go home to-night?” suddenly demanded the Wilbur twin, pointing at his brother so there should be no mistake.  The Merle twin seemed already a stranger to him.

“Not to-night, dear, but in a few days, I would suppose.”  It sent Mrs. Penniman to the stove again.

“I don’t just know when I will go,” said the Merle twin, surveying a replenished plate.  “But I guess I’ll give you back that knife you bought me; I probably won’t need it up there.  I’ll probably have plenty of better knives than that knife.”

The Wilbur twin questioned this, but hid his doubt.  Surely there could be few better knives in the whole world than one with a thing to dig stones out of horses’ feet.  Anyway, he would be glad to have it, and was glad the promise had been made before witnesses.

After supper on the porch Dave Cowan in the hammock picked chords and scraps of melody from his guitar, quite as if nothing had happened.  Judge Penniman, in his wicker chair, continued to muse upon certain pleasant contingencies of this new situation.  It had occurred to him that Dave Cowan himself would be even more a Whipple than any Penniman, and would enjoy superior advantages inevitably rising from this circumstance.