y, and since then they've
been going--going. Never was two such rows of teeth as I took with me to
the Colony. Over fifty years ago, Mrs. Wardle!"

"To think of that!" said Aunt M'riar. It was the time--not the
teeth--that seemed so wonderful. Naturally old Mrs. Prichard's teeth
went with her. But fifty years! And their owner quite bright still, when
once she got talking.

She was more talkative than usual this afternoon, and continued:--"No, I
do not believe, Mrs. Wardle, there was ever a girl with suchlike teeth
as mine were then." And then this memory brought back its companion
memory of the long past, but with no new sadness to her voice: "Only my
dear sister Phoebe's, Mrs. Wardle, I've told you about. She was my twin
sister ... I've told you ... you recollect?..."

"Yes, indeed, ma'am, and died when you was in the Colony!"

"I've never seen another more beautiful than Phoebe." She spoke with
such supreme unconsciousness of the twinship that Aunt M'riar forgot it,
too, until her next words came. "I was never free to say it of her in
those days, for they would have made sport of me for saying it. There
was none could tell us apart then. It does not matter now." She seemed
to fall away into an absent-minded dream, always caressing Dave's sunny
locks, which wanted cutting.

Aunt M'riar did not instantly perceive why a twin could not praise her
twin's beauty; at least, it needed reflection. She was clear on the
point, however, by the time Dave, merely watchful till now, suddenly
asked a question:--"What are stwins?" He had long been anxious for
enlightenment on this point, and now saw his opportunity. His inquiry
was checked--if his curiosity was not satisfied--by a statement that
when a little boy had a brother the same age that was twins, incorrectly
_s_twins. He had to affect satisfaction.

The old woman, roused by Dave's question, attested the general truth of
his informant's statements; then went back to the memory of her sister.
"But I never saw her again," said she.

"No, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar. "So I understood. It was in England she
died?"

"No--no! Out at sea. She was drowned at sea. Fifty years ago ...
Yes!--well on to fifty years ago." She fell back a little into her
dreamy mood; then roused herself to say:--"I often wonder, Mrs. Wardle,
suppose my sister had lived to be my age, should we have kept on alike?"

Aunt M'riar was not a stimulus to conversation as far as perspicuity
went. A general t