n
never get to handle them like that--and that's no way to feel! And
I'm ashamed of myself because I _can't_ be detached and heavenly and
absorbed," she added, rising to go. "Everybody always is, it seems, but
just me."

"Fiddlededee, my dear!" scoffed Aunt Hannah, patting Billy's downcast
face. "Wait till a year from now, and we'll see about that third-person
bugaboo you're worrying about. _I'm_ not worrying now; so you'd better
not!"

CHAPTER XXII. A DOT AND A DIMPLE

On the day Cyril Henshaw's twins were six months old, a momentous
occurrence marked the date with a flaming red letter of remembrance; and
it all began with a baby's smile.

Cyril, in quest of his wife at about ten o'clock that morning, and not
finding her, pursued his search even to the nursery--a room he very
seldom entered. Cyril did not like to go into the nursery. He felt ill
at ease, and as if he were away from home--and Cyril was known to abhor
being away from home since he was married. Now that Marie had taken over
the reins of government again, he had been obliged to see very little
of those strange women and babies. Not but that he liked the babies, of
course. They were his sons, and he was proud of them. They should have
every advantage that college, special training, and travel could give
them. He quite anticipated what they would be to him--when they really
knew anything. But, of course, _now_, when they could do nothing but
cry and wave their absurd little fists, and wobble their heads in so
fearsome a manner, as if they simply did not know the meaning of the
word backbone--and, for that matter, of course they didn't--why, he
could not be expected to be anything but relieved when he had his den to
himself again, with a reasonable chance of finding his manuscript as
he had left it, and not cut up into a ridiculous string of paper dolls
holding hands, as he had once found it, after a visit from a woman with
a small girl.

Since Marie had been at the helm, however, he had not been troubled in
such a way. He had, indeed, known almost his old customary peace and
freedom from interruption, with only an occasional flitting across his
path of the strange women and babies--though he had realized, of course,
that they were in the house, especially in the nursery. For that reason,
therefore, he always avoided the nursery when possible. But to-day he
wanted his wife, and his wife was not to be found anywhere else in the
house. So, reluct