mity.

"If it's commenced on you, it's bound to commence on me before long. I
wonder--how fast it grows?"

Bep shook her head. "It wasn't there when I went to sleep."

"If it grows on you toward me, and on me toward you that quick, why, in
a week--we'll be--stuck fast--won't we?"

Bep nodded miserably.

"Some morning," mourned Fom, wriggling unhappily, "we'll wake and it'll
be all done. You'll just have to study hard, Bessie Madigan, and be in
my class in school; I won't go back into the mixed primary--I just
won't! Oh, Bep, why will you put your arm around me at night?"

"I don't. I always go to sleep with my back to you. You know I do. And
in the morning, the first thing I know you're flinging my arm off. I
believe you pull my arm over you yourself. I believe you want to get
stuck together and be Chemise Twins!" Bep scolded tearfully, with her
usual ill luck with unfamiliar words.

There was a sorrow-smitten pause.

"I say, Beppy," the termination was a sign of sudden good humor in Fom,
"didn't you tumble down yesterday when you and Bombey Forrest were
driving the Grayson kids round the block in your relay race?"

The light of hope leaped up in Bessie's eyes. "Could it be that?"

"Of course it could; it is, you silly!"

"I'm not a silly. You were scared yourself," retorted the blonde twin,
relieved but pugnacious.

"Pooh! I only pretended, to frighten you," jeered Fom.

"Not much you didn't. I ain't anybody's dope."

"Anybody's what?"

"Anybody's dope," answered Bep, uncertainly; she knew how little words
were to be trusted.

"What's 'dope'?" demanded Florence.

"Why--what Kate said yesterday."

An enjoying giggle came from Sissy's bed. She had waked. "_Dupe_, you
goosy--_dupe_!" she chuckled.

"Yah! Yah!" sneered Fom, happy in her twin's discomfiture.

Bep blushed with mortification. "Don't you trophy over me, Fom
Madigan!" she cried wrathfully.

Sissy's giggle became a shout of laughter, and straightway she sallied
forth, benightgowned as she was, to carry the news of Bep's latest to
the Madigans--while Bep, aware that she had Partingtoned again, without
knowing just how, cried furiously after her: "I didn't say it! I
didn't!"

Bep's talent was dear to the Madigans. They seized upon each blunder she
made, and held it up, shrinking and bare, under the light of their
laughter-loving eyes. They ridiculed it interminably, and were
unflaggingly entertained by it, repeating it for the edificat