he
time, I give it up! They don't know their own minds from one six minutes
to the next.--Why don't you want to go?" she demanded, coming at last to
the point. Aileen was listening in amused silence.

"'Coz we got scared--awful scared," said Dulcie under her breath.

"Scared most to death," Doosie added solemnly.

Both Mrs. Caukins and Aileen saw at once that the children were in
earnest.

"You look scared!" said Mrs. Caukins with withering scorn; "you've eaten
a good supper if you were 'scared' as you say.--What scared you?"

The twins looked down into their plates, the generally cleared-up
appearance of which seemed fully to warrant their mother's sarcasm.

"Luigi told us not to tell," said Dulcie in a low voice.

"Luigi told you not to tell!" echoed their mother. "I'd like to know
what right Luigi Poggi has to tell my children not to tell their mother
anything and everything!" She spoke with waxing excitement; every
motherly pin-feather was erect.

"He was 'fraid it would scare you," ventured Doosie.

"Scare me! He must have a pretty poor opinion of a woman that can raise
six boys of her own and then be 'scared' at what two snips of girls can
tell her. You'll tell me now, this very minute, what scared you--this
all comes of your being away from the house so far and so late--and I
won't have it."

"We saw a bear--"

"A big one--"

"He was crawling on all fours--"

"Back of the sheepfold wall--"

"He scrooched down as if he was nosing for something--"

"Just where the trees are so thick you can't see into the woods--"

"And we jumped over the wall and right down into the sheep, and they
made an awful fuss they were so scared too, huddling and rushing round
to get out--"

"Then we found the gate--"

"But I _heard_ him--" Dulcie's eyes were very big and bright with
remembered terror.

"And then we climbed over the gate--'Lias had locked it--and run home
lickety-split and most run into Luigi at the bridge--"

"'Coz we come down the road after we got through the last pasture--"

"Oh, he was so big!" Doosie shuddered as her imagination began to work
more vigorously with the recital--"bigger'n a man--"

"What nonsense."

The twins had been telling all this at the same time, and their mother's
common sense and downright exclamation brought them to a full stop. They
looked crestfallen.

"You needn't tell me there's a bear between here and Moosehead--I know
better. Did you tell Luigi all this?" s