by
which he had been misled denoted merely the possession of a certain
build of nose by Whipples.

But even this simple phenomenon offered some distraction from his
present miseries. He could glance along the line of Whipple noses and
observe that they were, indeed, of a markedly similar pattern. It was,
as one might say, a standardized nose, raised by careful selection
through past generations of Whipples to the highest point of efficiency;
for ages yet to come the demands of environment, howsoever capricious,
would probably dictate no change in its structural details. It sufficed.
It was, moreover, a nose of good lines, according to conventional
canons. It was shapely, and from its high bridge jutted forward with
rather a noble sweep of line to the thin, curved nostrils. The high
bridge was perhaps the detail that distinguished it from most good
noses. It seemed to begin to be a nose almost from the base of the brow.
In a world of all Whipple noses this family would have been remarked for
its beauty. In one of less than Whipple noses--with other less claimant
designs widely popularized--it might be said that the Whipple face would
be noted rather for distinction than beauty.

In oblique profile the Wilbur twin could glance across the fronts in
turn of Harvey D. Whipple, of Gideon Whipple, his father; of Sharon
Whipple, his uncle; and of Juliana Whipple, sole offspring of Sharon.
The noses were alike. One had but to look at Miss Juliana to know that
in simple justice this should have been otherwise. She might have kept a
Whipple nose--Whipple in all essentials--without too pressing an
insistence upon bulk. But it had not been so. Her nose was as utterly
Whipple as any. They might have been interchanged without detection.

The Wilbur twin stared and speculated upon and mildly enjoyed this
display, until a species of hypnotism overtook him, a mercifully
deadening inertia that made him slumberous and almost happy. He could
keep still at last, and be free from the correcting hand of Mrs.
Penniman or the warning prod of the judge's elbow. He dozed in a smother
of applied godliness. He was delighted presently to note with an
awakening start that the sermon was well under way. He heard no word of
this. He knew only that a frowning old gentleman stood in a high place
and scolded about something. The Wilbur twin had no notion what his
grievance might be; was sensible only of his heated aspect, his activity
in gesture, and th