" he said. "Your twin sister is dead."

"Oh!" I breathed. What could I do but sit there turning red and white,
and looking like a fool before him?

"It is a sad and curious coincidence that my twin brother expired at
the same instant. What is there for us to do but to console each
other?"

He reached out a hand, palm upwards, to me across the table. "You will
find life pleasanter as a doctor's wife than as a doctor," he said.
"And----"

But I have told you enough till next mail, Berthalina. By that time,
perhaps, you will have prepared yourself for the rest of what he said
to me, and what I answered.

I wonder if you will think I have been a sensible and self-restrained
woman all my life to act like a rash, precipitate fool in the finish?

I wonder!

AUNTIE

"And _now_, pray, what are you gnashing your teeth about? You never
rested until I'd made Auntie promise to stay with us. I didn't wish for
her; she didn't wish to come; but, as she's here, the least we can do
is to behave decently to her."

"Who said we shouldn't behave decently to her?"

"Well, to see you standing there cursing and gnashing your teeth while
you brush your hair!"

"I don't curse, or gnash my teeth, or even brush my hair in public, do
I?"

"Oh, of course, it's the wife who has the monopoly of all such pleasing
demonstrations!" the wife said. Then she pushed her arms through the
short sleeves of the blouse she was going to wear, in honour of Auntie,
at dinner that night, and presented her back to Augustus Mellish in
order that he might perform a husband's part and fasten the garment.

"You, who have never been in her delightful home at Surbiton, don't
know the luxurious sort of life Auntie leads," Mrs Mellish went on.
"Travels with her maid, generally; but I told her we could not put her
up. Keeps four servants; never does a thing for herself, but is
pampered and made much of in every way. Money, of course. There isn't
anything in _Auntie_ to call forth all that devotion."

"Money is a useful thing," the husband said. "I wish your infernal
dressmaker wouldn't make your things so tight. That's the second nail
I've broken, confound it!"

"Gnashing again! If I were to swear and go on in that ridiculous way
over every little thing I do for you, I wonder what you'd think of it!
Brushing your hats, ironing your ties, putting your trousers into
stretchers--and if I ask you to fasten a few buttons, you blaspheme. If
you had the w