rather than young girls, and they felt
unwontedly at ease.

"To the very end," Dora asserted. "We begin teaching Monday, and--and we
have to find a place to board." Her color rose a little, but she smiled.

"That _is_ plucky," he commented. "We can help you there; I know a
number of places. When do you want to move?"

"To-morrow," they answered in unison.

He consulted an engagement-book, reflected a few moments, then made a
note.

"Morton or I will call for you to-morrow at three," he announced with
business-like brevity. "I think I know just the place, but we will give
you a choice. If you really wish to move in at once, you could have your
things packed, ready to be sent for."

"Oh, we do!" said Cora. He glanced meditatively at their fine and
glowing faces.

"Of course you won't be comfortable, luxurious, as you are here," he
warned them, with a nod toward the great paneled hall. Mrs. Baldwin
passed the drawing-room door below with the stately tread of a reviewing
officer.

"Oh, we don't care!" they exclaimed eagerly.

The next day their mother treated the twins as if they were not. She
spoke no word to them and did not seem to hear their husky little
efforts at reconciliation. They found it hard to remember persistently
that they were revolutionists rather than children in disgrace. She was
unapproachable in her own room when Mr. White and Mr. Morton came for
them.

"Well, we can't help it," they said sadly as they locked their two
trunks and went down the stairs.

Three hours later the twins had entered a new world and were rapturously
making an omelet in a kitchen that had begun life as a closet, while Mr.
Morton put up shelves and hooks and Mr. White tacked green burlap over
gloomy wall-paper. Groceries and kitchen utensils and amusing make-shift
furniture kept arriving in exciting profusion. They had not dreamed that
there was such happiness in the world.

"If only mother will forgive us, it will be simply perfect!" they told
each other when they settled down for the night in their hard little
cots. They said that many times in the days that followed. The utter joy
of work and freedom and simplicity had no other blemish.

For five weeks Mrs. Baldwin remained obdurate. Then, one Sunday
afternoon, she appeared, cold, critical, resentful still; lifted her
eyebrows at the devices of their light housekeeping; looked disgusted
when they pointed out from the window the little cafe where they
sometime