TOOK LEAVE OF HIS WITS, AND TWO CAME TO THEIR
SENSES.

XXIV. OF THE BEST HELLEBORE; AND AN EXPERIMENT IN THE ENTERTAINMENT
OF TWINS.

XXV. WHICH ENDS THIS STORY OF TROY.

[Illustration: The Astonishing History of Troy Town]

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH THE READER IS MADE ACQUAINTED WITH A STATE OF INNOCENCE; AND
THE MEANING OF THE WORD "CUMEELFO".

"Any news to-night?" asked Admiral Buzza, leading a trump.

"Hush, my love," interposed his wife timidly, with a glance at the
Vicar. She liked to sit at her husband's left, and laid her small
cards before him as so many tributes to his greatness.

"I will not hush, Emily. I repeat, is there any news to-night?"

Miss Limpenny, his hostess and vis-a-vis, finding the Admiral's eye
fierce upon her, coughed modestly and announced that twins had just
arrived to the postmistress. Her manner, as she said this, implied
that, for aught she knew, they had come with the letters.

The Vicar took the trick and gathered it up in silence. He was a
portly, antique gentleman, with a fine taste for scandal in its
proper place, but disliked conversation during a rubber.

"Twins, eh?" growled the Admiral. "Just what I expected. She always
was a wasteful woman."

"My love!" expostulated his wife. Miss Limpenny blushed.

"They'll come to the workhouse," he went on, "and serve him right for
making such a marriage."

"I have heard that his heart is in the right place," pleaded Miss
Limpenny, "but he used--"

"Eh, ma'am?"

"It's of no consequence," said Miss Limpenny, with becoming
bashfulness. "It's only that he always used, in sorting his cards,
to sit upon his trumps--that always seemed to me--"

"Just so," replied the Admiral, "and now it's twins. Bless the man!
what next?"

It was in the golden age, before Troy became demoralised, as you
shall hear. At present you are to picture the drawing-room of the
Misses Limpenny arranged for an "evening": the green rep curtains
drawn, the "Book of Beauty" disposed upon the centre table, the
ballad music on the piano, and the Admiral's double-bass in the
corner. Six wax candles were beaming graciously on cards, tea-cakes
and ratafias; on the pictures of "The First Drive," and "The Orphan's
Dream," the photographic views of Troy from the harbour, the opposite
hill, and one or two other points, and finally the noted oil-painting
of Miss Limpenny's papa as he appeared shortly after preaching an
assize