turned her back upon the enemy and retreated to a corner to find out
what Santa Claus and her own particular patron saint had to offer for
the double celebration.

There was a dictionary from Kate--an added insult. But, to compensate,
there was a whole orange from Aunt Anne, a bag of Chinese nuts from
Wong, and from Split and Sissy (a separate donation from each) an
undivided half-interest in the white kitten known as Spitfire.

When she had summed up the gifts of the gods to herself, Bep's eyes
turned quickly to Fom's pile.

There was an assortment of hair-ribbons, more or less the worse for
wear, from Kate, whose braids were coiled around her head these days.
(Bep didn't envy her twin these, for the excellent reason that a
back-comb was all that was necessary to keep her short blonde hair in
order.) Then there was, from Sissy, a pen-wiper, whose cruelly twisted
shape was a reflection of that needlewoman's agonies in its composition;
upon it were embroidered figures and colors of things never seen on sea
or land. (Fom might have that.) From Split--but Bep knew, of course,
what there was from Split. Every year regularly, since the second of the
Madigans had put away childish things, she had bestowed upon her
faithful retainer her favorite doll Dora,--the large one, with waxen
head and dark-brown tresses,--only to take it back at the first symptom
of revolt, for a caprice, or merely to feel her power. She was an Indian
giver, was Split. (Fom might have Dora, Bep said to herself, as long as
she could keep her.)

But then Fom, too, had a large, fair, yellow orange and a bag of strange
candies from Chinatown. As to these ...

The twins must be pardoned, but circumstances had soured them. They had
been cheated out of either a birthday or a Christmas--they had not
decided which was the crueler wrong, so had not yet adopted and
proclaimed their grievance. Besides this sorrow, each, by an interfering
and unprovoked intrusion, had defrauded the other of the child's
inalienable right to the center of the stage at least once a year. And
when one remembers how crowded was the Madigan stage with jealous
performers, any actor at all desirous of an opportunity must sympathize
with them.

It was not etiquette for the twins to remember each other's birthday
with a gift, one reason being that they were incapable of such a piece
of hypocrisy. Another was that it would have seemed too like the rigid
reciprocity of the Misses Blind-S