clothes----"

"There!" gasped the horrified Winona. "Didn't I say it would be Wilbur?"

"And then what did they do but cut off her braid with a knife!"

"Wilbur's knife--Merle hasn't any."

"And the Lord knows what the little fiends would have done next, but
Juliana Whipple happened to be passing, and heard the poor child's
screams and took her away from them."

"That dreadful, dreadful Wilbur!" cried Winona.

"Reform school," spoke the judge, as if he uttered it from the bench.

"But something queer," went on Mrs. Penniman. "Juliana took the twins
home in the pony cart, with Wilbur wearing Patricia's dress--it's a
plaid gingham I made myself--and someone gave him a lot of money and let
him go, and they didn't give Merle any because Ed Seaver saw them on
River Street, and Wilbur had it all. And what did Patricia Whipple say
to Don Paley but that she was going to have one of the twins for her
brother, because no one else would get her a brother, and so she must.
But what would she want one of those little cutthroats for? That's what
puzzles me."

"Merle is not a cutthroat," said Winona with tightening lips. "He never
will be a cutthroat." She left all manner of permissible suspicions
about his brother.

"Well, it just beat me!" confessed her mother. "Maybe they've been
reading Wild West stories."

"Wilbur, perhaps," insisted Winona. "Merle is already very choice in his
reading."

"A puzzle, anyway--why, there they come!"

And the manner of their coming brought more bewilderment to the house of
Penniman. For the criminal Wilbur did not come shamed and slinking, but
with rather an uplift. Behind him gloomily trod the Merle twin. Even at
a distance he was disapproving, accusatory, put upon. It was to be seen
that he washed his hands of the evil.

"Whatever in the world--" began Mrs. Penniman, for Wilbur in the hollow
of his arm bore a forked branch upon which seemed to perch in all
confidence a free bird of the wilds.

"A stuffed bird!" said the peering Winona, and dispelled this illusion.

The twins entered the gate. Midway up the gravelled walk Wilbur Cowan
began a gurgling oration.

"I bet nobody can guess what I brought! Yes, sir--a beautiful present
for every one--that will make a new man of poor old Judge Penniman, and
this lovely orange--that's for Mrs. Penniman--and I bet Winona can't
guess what's wrapped up in this box for her--it's the most beautiful
album, and this first-class animal for my fa