oom.

"Here we are, auntie, or here I am and here is she."

"Come along, then, my dears."

"Well, indeed, I never did," said William, when he entered the kitchen;
"no, I never, never did see such a likeness between two young leddies.
They are the same picture as each other! And missus says to me,
'William,' she says, 'this is Miss Gwladys's sister, her twin-sister,'
she says, 'Miss Valmai Powell.' And I couldn't say nothing, if you
believe me, with my eyes as big as saucers. Ach y fi! there's an odd
thing!"

In the drawing-room after dinner there were endless questions and
answers, each one seeming to find in the other's history a subject of
the deepest interest. Mrs. Besborough Power, especially, with her nose
in the air, sometimes looking over her spectacles, and sometimes under
them, sometimes through them, did not hesitate to question Valmai on
the minutest particulars of her life hitherto--questions which the
latter found it rather difficult to answer without referring to the
last eighteen months.

"H'm!" said Mrs. Power, for the twentieth time, "and ever since your
father's death you have been living with your uncle?"

"With my uncles, first one and then the other; and the last few months
with dear Nance, my old nurse."

"What! Nance Owen? Is she alive still?"

"Yes; she is, indeed."

"She must be very old now?"

"Yes, and frail; but as loving and tender as ever."

And so on, and so on, until bed-time; and the two girls were once more
together in their bedroom.

The maid, who was deeply interested in the strange visitor, lingered
about the toilet-table a little unnecessarily, until Gwladys, in a
voice which, though not unkind, showed she was more accustomed to
command than Valmai, said:

"That will do, thank you, I will do my own hair to-night. My sister
and I wish to talk." And, having dismissed Maria, she drew two cosy
chairs round the wood fire.

"Come along, Valmai, now we can chat to our heart's content." And
soon, with feet on fender and hair unloosed, the sisters talked and
talked, as if making up for the long years of silence which had divided
them.

"And how happy that neither of us is married," said Gwladys. "We might
never have met then, dear."

"Possibly," said Valmai.

"And what a good thing we haven't the same lover to quarrel about."

"Yes," said Valmai, rather absently. She was struggling hard with the
tumult of feelings which she had hitherto restrained, endeavo