eauties, I saw at a glance, were out after scalps. They
stood up side by side on the hearth-rug, absolutely and weirdly alike,
and arrayed on this occasion in garments of identical hue and cut. This
was a favourite device of theirs when about to meet a new young man; it
usually startled him considerably. If he was not a person of sound nerve
and abstemious habits, it not infrequently evoked from him some
enjoyably regrettable expression of surprise and alarm. I knew all the
tricks in their _repertoire_, and waited interestedly to see the effect
of this series.

On being presented, both smiled shyly and modestly, and each
simultaneously proffered a timid hand. The average young man, already a
little rattled by the duplicate vision of loveliness before him, could
never make up his mind which hand to shake first; and by the time he had
collected his faculties sufficiently to make an uncertain grab at one,
both would be swiftly and simultaneously withdrawn.

Robin, however, immediately shook hands with Dilly, who stood nearest to
Kitty, and then with Dolly. After that he stepped back a pace and
surveyed the pair with unconcealed interest.

Then he turned to my wife.

"A truly remarkable resemblance!" he observed benignantly. ("Just as if
we had been two babies in a bassinette!" as Dolly afterwards remarked.)

Then he resumed his inspection. The Twins, who were entirely unused to
this sort of thing, were too taken aback to proceed to their second
move--the utterance of some trivial and artless remark, delivered by
both simultaneously, and thereby calculated to throw the victim into a
state of uncertainty as to which he should answer first. Instead, they
stood wide-eyed and tongue-tied before him.

"I must certainly discover some point of difference between these
ladies," continued Robin with an air of determination, "or I shall
always be in difficulties. Do not tell me the secret, Mrs Inglethwaite.
Perhaps I can find out for myself."

He concluded a minute inspection of the indignant Dilly, and turned his
unruffled gaze on Dolly.

"Yes," he said, "I have it! You" (triumphantly to Dolly) "have a tiny
brown spot in the blue of your left eye, while your sister has none."

It was quite true: she had. But it was a fact which most young men only
discovered after many furtive and sidelong glances. This imperturbable
creature had taken it all in in one resolute scrutiny; and Dolly,
blushing like Aurora--an infirmity to whi