n the parlour, with his hands in his pockets, he muttered, "Twa
lasses! I ne'er heard tell o' the like o't. I wonder whar their tochers
are to come frae?"

Miss Grizzy, in great perturbation, declared it certainly was a great
pity it had so happened, but these things couldn't be helped; she was
sure Lady Maclaughlan would be greatly surprised.

Miss Jacky saw no cause for regret, and promised herself an endless
source of delight in forming the minds and training the ideas of her
infant nieces.

Miss Nicky wondered how they were to be nursed. She was afraid Lady
Juliana would not be able for both, and wet-nurses had such stomachs!

Henry, meanwhile, whose love had all revived in anxiety for the safety,
and anguish for the sufferings of his youthful partner, had hastened to
her apartment, and, kneeling by her side, he pressed her hands to his
lips with feelings of the deepest emotion.

"Dearer--a thousand times dearer to me than ever," whispered he, as he
fondly embraced her, "and those sweet pledges of our love!"

"Ah, don't mention them," interrupted his lady in a languid tone. "How
very provoking! I hate girls so--and two of them--oh!" and she sighed
deeply. Her husband sighed too; but from a different cause. The nurse
now appeared, and approached with her helpless charges; and both
parents, for the first time looked on their own offspring.

"What nice little creatures!" said the delighted father, as, taking them
in his arms, he imprinted the first kiss on the innocent faces of his
daughters, and then held them to their mother; who, turning from them
with disgust, exclaimed, "How can you kiss them, Harry? They are so
ugly, and they squall so! Oh do, for heaven's sake, take them away! And
see, there is poor Psyche quite wretched at being so long away from me.
Pray, put her on the bed."

"She will grow fond of her babies by-and-by," said poor Henry to
himself, as he quitted the apartment, with feelings very different from
those with which he entered it.

At the pressing solicitations of her husband, the fashionable mother
was prevailed upon to attempt nursing one of her poor starving infants;
but the first trial proved also the last, as she declared nothing upon
earth should ever induce her to perform so odious an office; and as
Henry's entreaties and her aunts' remonstrances served alike to irritate
and agitate her, the contest was, by the advice of her medical
attendant, completely given up. A wet-nurse was