“Ugh, it was awful just the mere look of that phillipene!”

Rowena did not answer.  Her faculties were still caked; she had not yet found her voice.  Presently the widow said, a little resentfully: 

“Always been used to sleeping together—­in-fact, prefer it.  And I was thinking it was to accommodate me.  I thought it was very good of them, whereas a person situated as that young man is—­”

“Ma, you oughtn’t to begin by getting up a prejudice against him.  I’m sure he is good-hearted and means well.  Both of his faces show it.”

“I’m not so certain about that.  The one on the left—­I mean the one on it’s left—­hasn’t near as good a face, in my opinion, as its brother.”

“That’s Luigi.”

“Yes, Luigi; anyway it’s the dark-skinned one; the one that was west of his brother when they stood in the door.  Up to all kinds of mischief and disobedience when he was a boy, I’ll be bound.  I lay his mother had trouble to lay her hand on him when she wanted him.  But the one on the right is as good as gold, I can see that.”

“That’s Angelo.”

“Yes, Angelo, I reckon, though I can’t tell t’other from which by their names, yet awhile.  But it’s the right-hand one—­the blond one.  He has such kind blue eyes, and curly copper hair and fresh complexion—­”

“And such a noble face!—­oh, it is a noble face, ma, just royal, you may say!  And beautiful deary me, how beautiful!  But both are that; the dark one’s as beautiful as—­a picture.  There’s no such wonderful faces and handsome heads in this town none that even begin.  And such hands, especially Angelo’s—­so shapely and—­”

“Stuff, how could you tell which they belonged to?—­they had gloves on.”

“Why, didn’t I see them take off their hats?”

“That don’t signify.  They might have taken off each other’s hats.  Nobody could tell.  There was just a wormy squirming of arms in the air —­seemed to be a couple of dozen of them, all writhing at once, and it just made me dizzy to see them go.”

“Why, ma, I hadn’t any difficulty.  There’s two arms on each shoulder—­”

“There, now.  One arm on each shoulder belongs to each of the creatures, don’t it?  For a person to have two arms on one shoulder wouldn’t do him any good, would it?  Of course not.  Each has an arm on each shoulder.  Now then, you tell me which of them belongs to which, if you can.  They don’t know, themselves—­they just work whichever arm comes handy.  Of course they do; especially if they are in a hurry and can’t stop to think which belongs to which.”

The mother seemed to have the rights of the argument, so the daughter abandoned the struggle.  Presently the widow rose with a yawn and said: 

“Poor thing, I hope it won’t catch cold; it was powerful wet, just drenched, you may say.  I hope it has left its boots outside, so they can be dried.”

Then she gave a little start, and looked perplexed.