re was my
stepfather to nurse, but I was young and strong; I didn't mind; and he
wasn't a burden long, poor father. Then, after four years came the
shock of David's reckless marriage. When he asked if he might bring
that girl here until her time of trial was over, it seemed to me I
could never endure it! But there were only two of us left, David and
I; I thought of mother and said yes."

"I remember, Letty; I had come to Beulah then."

"Yes, and you know what Eva was. How David, how anybody, could have
loved her, I cannot think! Well, he brought her, and you know how it
turned out. David never saw her alive again, nor ever saw his babies
after they were three days old. Still, what can you expect of a father
who is barely twenty-one?"

"If he's old enough to have children, he's old enough to notice them,"
said Mrs. Larrabee with her accustomed spirit. "Somebody ought to jog
his sense of responsibility. It's wrong for women to assume men's
burdens beyond a certain point; it only makes them more selfish. If
you only knew where David is, you ought to bundle the children up and
express them to his address. Not a word of explanation or apology;
simply tie a tag on them, saying, 'Here's your Twins!'"

"But I love the babies," said Letty smiling through her tears, "and
David may not be in a position to keep them."

"Then he shouldn't have had them," retorted Reba promptly; "especially
not two of them. There's such a thing as a man's being too lavish with
babies when he has no intention of doing anything for them but bring
them into the world. If you had a living income, it would be one
thing, but it makes me burn to have you stitching on coats to feed and
clothe your half-brother's children!"

"Perhaps it doesn't make any difference--now!" sighed Letty, pushing
back her hair with an abstracted gesture. "I gave up a good deal for
the darlings once, but that's past and gone. Now, after all, they're
the only life I have, and I'd rather make coats for them than for
myself."

Letty Boynton had never said so much as this to Mrs. Larrabee in the
three years of their friendship, and on her way back to the parsonage,
the minister's wife puzzled a little over the look in Letty's face
when she said, "David seemed to think there could be no question of
any life of my own"; and again, "I gave up a good deal for the
darlings once!"

"Luther," she said to the minister, when the hymns had been chosen,
the sermon pronounced excellent