“Come to your Aunt Letty then and be mothered!” she sobbed, lifting the pillow and taking it, with its double burden, into her arms.  “You shan’t suffer, poor innocent darlings, even if those who brought you into the world turn away from you!  Come to your Aunt Letty and be mothered!”

“That’s right, that’s right,” said the doctor over a lump in his throat.  “We mustn’t let the babies pay the penalty of their parents’ sins; and there’s one thing that may soften your anger a little, Letty:  Eva’s not right; she’s not quite responsible.  There are cases where motherhood, that should be a joy, brings nothing but mental torture and perversion of instinct.  Try and remember that, if it helps you any.  I’ll drop in every two or three hours and I’ll write David to come at once.  He must take his share of the burden.”

Well, David came, but Eva was in her coffin.  He was grave and silent, and it could not be said that he showed a trace of fatherly pride.  He was very young, it is true, thoroughly ashamed of himself, very unhappy, and anxious about his new cares; but Letty could not help thinking that he regarded the twins as a sort of personal insult,—­perhaps not on their own part, nor on Eva’s, but as an accident that might have been prevented by a competent Providence.  At any rate, he carried himself as a man with a grievance, and when he looked at his offspring, which was seldom, it seemed to Letty that he regarded the second one as an unnecessary intruder and cherished a secret resentment at its audacity in coming to this planet uninvited.  He went back to his work in Boston without its having crossed his mind that anybody but his sister could take care of his children.  He didn’t really regard them as children or human beings; it takes a woman’s vision to make that sort of leap into the future.  Until a new-born baby can show some personal beauty, evince some intellect, stop squirming and squealing, and exhibit enough self-control to let people sleep at night, it is not, as a rule, persona grata to any one but its mother.

David did say vaguely to Letty when he was leaving, that he hoped “they would be good,” the screams that rent the air at the precise moment of farewell rather giving the lie to his hopes.

Letty was struggling to end the interview without breaking down, for she was worn out nervously as well as physically, and thought if she could only be alone with her problems and her cares she would rather write to David than tell him her mind face to face.

Brother and sister held each other tightly for a moment, kissed each other good-bye, and then Letty watched Osh Popham’s sleigh slipping off with David into the snowy distance, the merry tinkle of the bells adding to the sadness in her dreary heart.  Dick gone yesterday, Dave to-day; Beulah without Dick and Dave!  The two joys of her life were missing and in their places two unknown babies whose digestive systems were going to need constant watching, according