e had she
just had to share with her twin. And everywhere she went her lazy blonde
sister had to go, too. People made up a terrible name for them. They
called them"--he lowered his voice to the apologetic tone one has for
not quite proper subjects--"the 'Siamese Twins,' and--if you don't
believe me, here's their picture!" With a quick movement he opened the
book before them.

The twins' faces went gray; in that second they even looked alike, so
tense were both with the same emotion. Instinctively they made a swift
motion, a dumb prayer for sympathy, toward each other; then as swiftly
shuddered apart as though temporary contact might become lifelong
bondage.

But as the months went by and they remained mercifully unattached
(though battling still in their double capacity of Madigans and twins),
they almost outgrew their credulity; yet still, on occasions, observed
the morning ceremony of self-inspection.

In fact, though, nothing held them in peace together except sleep, when
nature must have reunited them in dreams; for, no matter in what
positions they were relatively when they closed their eyes, morning
found their arms about each other, their breath intermingled, their
little bodies intercurved like well-packed sardines.

On their birthday morning--the twins were born on Christmas--Fom waked
very early, alarmed to find Bep's arm about her. She never remembered in
the morning that at night her last hazy thought had been to reach for
it, pull down the sleeve of its nightgown, and cuddle close to her twin.
She threw it from her now with unusual violence, and, sitting up in bed,
slipped off her gown that she might closely examine her right side--the
side that had been nearest Bep.

The blonde twin woke while this process was going on, and its dread
significance shook the haze of slumber from her eyes. She, too, slipped
her gown from her shoulders and, shivering with the cold, passed an
apprehensive hand along her left ribs.

"Do you?" she whispered.

"N-no. I don't think so. I--I dreamed that it was there, though. Do
you?"

An assenting shudder shook Bep's body.

"Where--oh, where? I don't believe it!" cried Fom. "You're just a
'fraid-cat trying to frighten me."

Bep pointed to her side. There it was unmistakably--a round
black-and-blue mark.

A wail escaped Florence. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she cried, "what in the
world shall we do?"

Bep did not answer. She sat stupefied, staring at the evidence of
cala