ody stirred. This was no familiar footstep; presently they heard a
strange little cry, and still they feared to look, or to know what was
waiting outside. Then Mrs. Thacher took a candle in her hand, and,
still hesitating, asked once, "Who is there?" and, hearing no answer,
slowly opened the door.

III

AT JAKE AND MARTIN'S

In the mean time, the evening had been much enjoyed by the brothers
who were spending it together in Martin Dyer's kitchen. The houses
stood side by side, but Mr. Jacob Dyer's youngest daughter, the only
one now left at home, was receiving a visit from her lover, or, as the
family expressed it, the young man who was keeping company with her,
and her father, mindful of his own youth, had kindly withdrawn.
Martin's children were already established in homes of their own, with
the exception of one daughter who was at work in one of the cotton
factories at Lowell in company with several of her acquaintances. It
has already been said that Jake and Martin liked nobody's company so
well as their own. Their wives had a time-honored joke about being
comparatively unnecessary to their respective partners, and indeed the
two men had a curiously dependent feeling toward each other. It was
the close sympathy which twins sometimes have each to each, and had
become a byword among all their acquaintances. They were seldom
individualized in any way, and neither was able to distinguish
himself, apparently, for one always heard of the family as Jake and
Martin's folks, and of their possessions, from least to greatest, as
belonging to both brothers. The only time they had ever been separated
was once in their early youth, when Jake had been fired with a desire
to go to sea; but he deserted the coastwise schooner in the first port
and came home, because he could not bear it any longer without his
brother. Martin had no turn for seafaring, so Jake remained ashore and
patiently made a farmer of himself for love's sake, and in spite of a
great thirst for adventure that had never ceased to fever his blood.
It was astonishing how much they found to say to each other when one
considers that their experiences were almost constantly the same; but
nothing contented them better than an uninterrupted evening spent in
each other's society, and as they hoed corn or dug potatoes, or mowed,
or as they drove to the Corners, sitting stiffly upright in the
old-fashioned thorough-braced wagon, they were always to be seen
talki