old coat o' my Albert's as good
as I could, sittin' on the quarter-deck in the sun all that afternoon,
and 't was all as if I was livin' in a lovely dream. I don't know how
to explain it, but there hasn't been no friend I've felt so near to me
ever since."

One could not say much--only listen. Mrs. Todd put in a discerning
question now and then, and Mrs. Martin's eyes shone brighter and
brighter as she talked. What a lovely gift of imagination and true
affection was in this fond old heart! I looked about the plain New
England kitchen, with its wood-smoked walls and homely braided rugs on
the worn floor, and all its simple furnishings. The loud-ticking clock
seemed to encourage us to speak; at the other side of the room was an
early newspaper portrait of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and
Ireland. On a shelf below were some flowers in a little glass dish, as
if they were put before a shrine.

"If I could have had more to read, I should have known 'most everything
about her," said Mrs. Martin wistfully. "I 've made the most of what I
did have, and thought it over and over till it came clear. I sometimes
seem to have her all my own, as if we 'd lived right together. I 've
often walked out into the woods alone and told her what my troubles
was, and it always seemed as if she told me 't was all right, an' we
must have patience. I 've got her beautiful book about the Highlands;
't was dear Mis' Todd here that found out about her printing it and got
a copy for me, and it's been a treasure to my heart, just as if 't was
written right to me. I always read it Sundays now, for my Sunday
treat. Before that I used to have to imagine a good deal, but when I
come to read her book, I knew what I expected was all true. We do
think alike about so many things," said the Queen's Twin with
affectionate certainty. "You see, there is something between us, being
born just at the some time; 't is what they call a birthright. She 's
had great tasks put upon her, being the Queen, an' mine has been the
humble lot; but she's done the best she could, nobody can say to the
contrary, and there 's something between us; she's been the great
lesson I 've had to live by. She's been everything to me. An' when
she had her Jubilee, oh, how my heart was with her!"

"There, 't would n't play the part in her life it has in mine," said
Mrs. Martin generously, in answer to something one of her listeners had
said. "Sometimes I think, n