, was already beginning the gayety by pledging
Mrs. Penniman in a wineglass of the Ajax Invigorator. He called it ruby
liquor and said that, taken in moderation, it would harm no one, though
he estimated that as few as three glasses would cause people to climb
trees like a monkey.

The Wilbur twin was puzzled by this and would have preferred that his
present be devoted solely to making a new man of Judge Penniman, but he
laughed loyally with his father, and rejoiced when Mrs. Penniman, in the
character of the abandoned duchess, put her own lips to the glass at his
father's urging. The judge did not enter into this spirit of foolery,
resenting, indeed, that a sound medicinal compound should be thus
impugned. And Winona was even more severe. Not for her to-day were jests
about Madame la Marquise and her heart of adamant. Dave Cowan tried a
few of these without result.

Winona was still silent with importance, or spoke cryptically, and she
lavished upon the Merle twin such attention as she could give from her
own mysterious calculations. One might have gathered that she was
beholding the Merle twin in some high new light. The Wilbur twin ate
silently and as unobtrusively as he could, for table manners were
especially watched by Winona on Sunday. Not until the blackberry pie did
he break into speech, and even then, it appeared, not with the utmost
felicity. His information that these here blackberries had been picked
off the grave of some old Jonas Whipple up in the burying ground caused
him to be regarded coldly by more than one of those about the table; and
Winona wished to be told how many times she had asked him not to say
"these here." Of course he couldn't tell her.

Dinner over, it appeared that Winona would take Merle with her to call
upon poor old Mrs. Dodwell, who had been bedridden for twenty years, but
was so patient with it all. She loved to have Merle sit by her bedside
of a Sunday and tell of the morning's sermon. They would also take her a
custard. The Wilbur twin was not invited upon this excursion, but his
father winked at him when it was mentioned and he was happy. He could in
no manner have edified the afflicted Mrs. Dodwell, and the wink meant
that he would go with his father for a walk over the hills--perhaps to
the gypsy camp. So he winked back at his father, being no longer in
Sunday-school, and was impatient to be off.

In the little house he watched from a window until Winona and Merle had
gone