“Then why are you in doubt how we’ll take it,” said Rex.  “What pleases you ought certainly to please us.”

“But perhaps this won’t.  It’s so—­ so, unexpected and altogether jolly.”

“Well, Miles Darley, you are certainly the most incomprehensible fellow this afternoon,” exclaimed Roy.  “What’s it about?”

“Well, it’s about the Pells and the Darleys,” explained Miles, the color still surging in his cheeks.  “In union there is strength, you know, and—­ haven’t you guessed it yet?”

“No, indeed, we haven’t and just you tell us right out what it is without any more fooling,” and Rex made a playful dab at his friend with the big sponge.

“All right, here goes then,” and Miles drew in his breath.  “Your mother has told my father that she will be Mrs. Darley, and that makes us brothers, Rex, don’t you see, and we’re all going back to Philadelphia together—­ well, don’t you like it?”

Miles checked himself suddenly, for Roy and Rex stood staring at him as if struck dumb, too amazed to allow any expression to appear on their faces.

But it was all true; they were to have another test of fortune, and though its bringing about seemed in some sense to deprive the boys of their mother, they knew that not only was this not so, but that they were to gain a father thereby.  “And a brother, too, don’t forget that,” Miles adds at my side.

 The end.

*** End of the project gutenberg EBOOK, two boys and A fortune ***

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