erhaps I could have some names ready for you to take home with you if
you'd wait a while longer."

"Thanks, Peace," he bowed courteously. "But I must hurry home and mind
the kiddies. There is no one there to look after them and Elspeth except
the nurse and Aunt Pen. I told them I shouldn't be gone but a few
minutes, and here it is almost an hour. Good-bye, Peace. Good-bye,
Cherry. I'll come again soon."

"Good-bye, St. John, and next time bring the twins with you."

"O, Peace," gasped Allee, who was just returning with the heavy book in
her short arms, and overheard the sister's parting admonition; "they're
too fresh yet. Grandma says it will prob'ly be several weeks 'fore they
get taken anywhere."

The preacher, convulsed with laughter, glanced back over his shoulder
and seeing the look of disappointment in the brown eyes, rashly
promised, "This shall be the first place they visit, girlies, and we'll
bring them just as soon as they are old enough."

So he swung out of sight down the driveway, and Peace turned to her
delightful task of finding suitable names for the little strangers at
the parsonage.

"They ought to begin with the same letter," suggested Cherry, wishing it
had fallen to her lot to name a pair of twins, "like Hazel and Helen
Bean."

"Or else rhyme with each other," put in excited Allee, thinking it a
most wonderful privilege which had been granted Peace, "like Pearl and
Beryl Whittaker."

"Or they might suggest the same thing," ventured Hope, who had heard the
good news and had come out to see what progress the favored sister was
making. "For instance, Opal and Garnet Ordway. The opal and the garnet
are precious stones, you know."

"_These_ twins are precious babies," interrupted Peace in decided
accents, "and we shan't call them such heathenish names as stones. This
book, now, has a long line of names,--here it is,--and there ought to be
some pretty ones amongst them, though I can't say the _a's_ sound very
nice. There is only one decent one in the bunch and that's Abigail."

Hope, leaning over the back of her chair, scanned the list beginning
with _a's_ and thoughtfully read aloud, "Abigail, Achsa, Ada, Adaline,
Addie, Adela, Adelaide, Adora, Agatha, Agnes, Alethea, Alexandra, Alice,
Almeda, Amanda, Amarilla, Amy, Angeline, Anna, Annabel, Antoinette,
Augusta, Aurelia, Aurora, Avis,--that last one isn't so bad--"

"It isn't so good, either," Peace retorted. "It sounds like the thing
you fa