only
confidant and adviser.

Letty looked at him, the tears streaming from her eyes.

"Oh, Doctor Lee, Doctor Lee! If an overruling Providence could smile,
wouldn't He smile now? David and Eva never wanted to marry each other,
I'm sure of it, and the last thing they desired was a child. Now
there are two of them. Their father is away, their mother won't look
at them! What will become of me until Eva gets well and behaves like a
human being? I never promised to be an aunt to twins; I never did like
twins; I think they're downright vulgar!"

"Waly waly! bairns are bonny:
One's enough and twa's ower mony,"

quoted the doctor. "It's worse even than you think, my poor Letty, for
the girl can't get well, because she won't! She has gritted her teeth,
turned her face to the wall, and refused her food. It's the beginning
of the end. You are far likelier to be a foster mother than an aunt!"

Letty's face changed and softened and her color rose. She leaned over
the two pink, crumpled creatures, still twitching nervously with the
amazement and discomfort of being alive.

[Illustration: "COME TO YOUR AUNT LETTY THEN AND BE MOTHERED!" SHE
SOBBED]

"Come to your Aunt Letty then and be mothered!" she sobbed, lifting
the pillow and taking it, with its double burden, into her arms. "You
shan't suffer, poor innocent darlings, even if those who brought you
into the world turn away from you! Come to your Aunt Letty and be
mothered!"

"That's right, that's right," said the doctor over a lump in his
throat. "We mustn't let the babies pay the penalty of their parents'
sins; and there's one thing that may soften your anger a little,
Letty: Eva's not right; she's not quite responsible. There are cases
where motherhood, that should be a joy, brings nothing but mental
torture and perversion of instinct. Try and remember that, if it helps
you any. I'll drop in every two or three hours and I'll write David
to come at once. He must take his share of the burden."

Well, David came, but Eva was in her coffin. He was grave and silent,
and it could not be said that he showed a trace of fatherly pride. He
was very young, it is true, thoroughly ashamed of himself, very
unhappy, and anxious about his new cares; but Letty could not help
thinking that he regarded the twins as a sort of personal
insult,--perhaps not on their own part, nor on Eva's, but as an
accident that might have been prevented by a competent Providence. At
any rate, h