onded to her
farewell, Dorcas caught at her cloak and begged:

"Wait, wait! Oliver, does thee hear? Elisabeth Calvert is going. She
is leaving Rose's babies! What--what--shall I do? May I keep them
here? Say it--Oliver speak, speak, quick! If thee does right in this
thing mayhap the Lord will bless thee in the other! Oliver, Oliver!"

He shook her frail hand from his sleeve but he spoke the word she
longed to hear, though the shadow on his face seemed rather to deepen
than to lighten and astute Betty Calvert was non-plussed. She had so
fully counted upon the fact that it was remorse concerning his
treatment of his daughter which burdened him that she could not
understand his increased somberness.

But he did speak, as he left the room, and the words his wife desired:

"Thee may do as thee likes."

Then Mrs. Calvert, too, went out and Dorothy with her; strangely
enough the twins making no effort to follow; in fact no effort toward
anything except a pan of fresh cookies which stood upon the table!
and with their fists full of these they submitted indifferently not
only to the desertion of their friends but to the yearning embraces of
their grandmother.

"Oh! what perfectly disgusting little creatures! Didn't mind our
leaving them with a stranger nor anything! Weren't they horrid? And it
didn't make him look any happier, either, their coming."

"No, they were not disgusting, simply natural. They've been
half-starved most of their lives and food seems to them, just now, the
highest good;" said Aunt Betty, as the carriage door was shut upon
them and they set out for home. "I cannot call it a wasted morning,
since that timid little woman was made glad and two homeless ones have
come into their own. But--my guess was wide of the mark. It isn't
remorse ails my miller neighbor but some mystery still unsolved. Ah!
me! And I thought I was beautifully helping Providence!"

"So you have, Aunt Betty. Course. Only how we shall miss those twins!
Seems if I couldn't bear to quite give 'Phira up. Deerhurst will be so
lonesome!"

"Lonesome, child! with all you young folks in it? Then just imagine
for an instant what Heartsease must have been to that poor wife. Shut
up alone with such a glum, indifferent husband, in that big house. I
saw no other person anywhere about, did you?"

"No, and, since you put it that way, of course I'm glad they're to be
hers not Molly's and mine."

"The queer thing is that he was so indifferent. I