“Yes, but we hardly ever do that.  There were disagreeable results, several times, and so we very seldom ask or grant the privilege, nowadays, and we never even think of such a thing unless the case is extremely urgent.  Besides, a week’s possession at a time seems so little that we can’t bear to spare a minute of it.  People who have the use of their legs all the time never think of what a blessing it is, of course.  It never occurs to them; it’s just their natural ordinary condition, and so it does not excite them at all.  But when I wake up, on Sunday morning, and it’s my week and I feel the power all through me, oh, such a wave of exultation and thanksgiving goes surging over me, and I want to shout ‘I can walk!  I can walk!’ Madam, do you ever, at your uprising, want to shout ’I can walk!  I can walk!’?”

“No, you poor unfortunate cretur’, but I’ll never get out of my bed again without doing it!  Laws, to think I’ve had this unspeakable blessing all my long life and never had the grace to thank the good Lord that gave it to me!”

Tears stood in the eyes of both the old ladies and the widow said, softly: 

“Betsy Hale, we have learned something, you and me.”

The conversation now drifted wide, but by and by floated back once more to that admired detail, the rigid and beautiful impartiality with which the possession of power had been distributed, between the twins.  Aunt Betsy saw in it a far finer justice than human law exhibits in related cases.  She said: 

“In my opinion it ain’t right no, and never has been right, the way a twin born a quarter of a minute sooner than the other one gets all the land and grandeurs and nobilities in the old countries and his brother has to go bare and be a nobody.  Which of you was born first?”

Angelo’s head was resting against Luigi’s; weariness had overcome him, and for the past five minutes he had been peacefully sleeping.  The old ladies had dropped their voices to a lulling drone, to help him to steal the rest his brother wouldn’t take him up-stairs to get.  Luigi listened a moment to Angelo’s regular breathing, then said in a voice barely audible: 

“We were both born at the same time, but I am six months older than he is.”

“For the land’s sake!”

“’Sh! on’t wake him up; he wouldn’t like my telling this.  It has always been kept secret till now.”

“But how in the world can it be?  If you were both born at the same time, how can one of you be older than the other?”

“It is very simple, and I assure you it is true.  I was born with a full crop of hair, he was as bald as an egg for six months.  I could walk six months before he could make a step.  I finished teething six months ahead of him.  I began to take solids six months before he left the breast.  I began to talk six months before he could say a word.  Last, and absolutely unassailable proof, the sutures in my skull closed six months ahead of his.