"Don't tell till we've tried it on Thomas and Mary."

"But——" May commenced.

"Let the goats butt; don't you try it, May!" said frolicsome Gay, pulling her after him out of the nursery.

In the dining-room Thomas and breakfast awaited them.

"Good morning, Thomas," said the mock May, very glibly.

"Good morning, Miss," responded unsuspicious Thomas. "Good morning, Master Gay."

"Good morning," replied the mock boy, not less glibly than the other conspirator.

"How do you think we look, Thomas," Gay continued; "as well as usual?"

"You look fine, Miss, fine," Thomas answered. "As for Master Gay there, I've never seen him look so neat."

This evidence of Thomas's mystification delighted the twins almost beyond concealment. They would have betrayed themselves had not Mary, the cook, appeared upon the scene. She carried two pasteboard boxes and she gave one to each of the children, saying, "Yer luncheon, dharlin', for ye'll be afther gettin' hungry on the cars. There's rolls, an' ham, an' fowl, an' harrd biled eggs, an'——"

"And little cakes!" interrupted May, with a scream of delight.

"Yes,—wid icin'," Mary replied, with a broad smile, for the twins were her especial pets. "But I niver knew that ye liked cake; I t'ought it was Miss May what had the swate toot!"

Gay and May smiled appreciatively at Mary's mistake. They were trying to explain to her that their gastronomical tastes were similar when nurse sailed majestically into the room.

"Mary," said she, "h'I'll see you h'in the kitchen. Thomas, 'urry hup; you must go h'in ten minutes. Children, Jane wants you h'in the 'all."

Before coming to America, nurse had been under-nurse-maid in an aristocratic English family, but from her deportment one would have supposed her to have been nurse to the Queen's own children. So majestic, pompous, and domineering was she that no one ventured to oppose or question her control. Therefore, when she ordered the group in the dining-room to separate they promptly separated without murmur or ado!

"They never suspected anything!" chuckled Gay, as he left the room with May. "We really must try it on mother, then we'll tell."

But Jane's first words when they reached the hall destroyed all hope of testing the mother.

"You mustn't fuss," Jane began, "you must be good and not make any trouble, but the doctor says you can't see your ma before you go."

"Why not?" the twins demanded in one voice.

"Because the doctor says if she gets as nervous to-day as she did yesterday that he won't answer for the consequences. She must be kept perfectly quiet."

"If it's for mother's good——" Gay began.

"It is for her good," Jane said.

"Then we won't fuss," sighed May.

"That's a good fellow," cried Jane, patting the mock boy's head.

May made up her mouth to tell Jane the truth, when nurse and Thomas joined them; Thomas, with Ned on his shoulder, and nurse carrying wraps, hats, and the lunch-boxes.

"Mercy hun h'us!" nurse exclaimed, "you h'ought to be h'off now."

As she spoke she seized the real May, and, before the child could speak, buttoned her into a jacket and set a tarpaulin sailor on her head.

The real Gay had his turn next. Nurse shook him into a light ulster and fastened a straw hat, trimmed with daisies, on his head by an elastic band which snapped under his chin with a loud noise.

All this time the twins had been struggling to speak. "But, nurse," they began, impetuously, for this was carrying the joke too far, "we——"

"You can say good-by to Ned when you come 'ome," said nurse, who thought they wanted to waste valuable time in farewells. "H'off with you!"

The real May was a picture of distress, but her more volatile brother seized her by the hand and whispered: "Never mind; it's only keeping up the lark; I've got the worst of it, too, in these horrid skirts."

CHAPTER IV
A REMARKABLE HOUSEHOLD

Everybody in Cedarville knew and respected General Haines. His ancestors for four generations had lived and died in the fine old mansion which he now occupied. The General was commonly considered a "character." He was dignified in appearance and irascible in temper; a perfect martinet on the subject of deportment in the rising generation; a stern enemy to cowardice and untruthfulness, while in many other matters he was as impracticable as a babe and as timorous as an old lady. His face was bearded and stern; his voice terrible. Whenever he lost his temper, which was every other minute, he shouted as though he had been at the head of an army. His heart was tender withal, and altogether he was as remarkable a gentleman as one often meets.

He was unmarried because he had never known a woman the equal of his mother, whose memory he adored. He had lived, since his mother's death, a life of comparative isolation in the old Haines' mansion, which was conducted as nearly as possible after the fashion of the last century, for the General hated innovations. He rarely left home, and he had not seen the Walcott twins since their babyhood.

In his housekeeper, Sarah, General Haines had a counterpart to the full as eccentric as himself. Warm-hearted, quick-tempered, and sharp-tongued, Sarah was the only person for whom the General felt wholesome awe. She ruled him completely; strangely enough she considered him the reverse of forbidding. This is not so singular, perhaps, in the light of the fact that the General seldom made a move without first consulting Sarah; when he did he generally regretted it!

His letter to Mr. Walcott was an instance where he had acted without orders, and when his nephew telegraphed that Gay would arrive on the noon train from New York, on the 8th of August, the doughty General realized what he had done. He had bidden a guest, possibly a troublesome one, to his house without Sarah's knowledge. No wonder he trembled and carried Mr. Walcott's telegram crumpled in his pocket two hours before he mentioned it!

On the eventful evening that May and Gay received their sentence of banishment, and at about the same hour, General Haines paced back and forth on the broad porch of his house, with the terrible telegram in his pocket. As he walked, he called himself a coward, and declared over and over again that he would be master in his own house!

This device for promoting courage he repeated several times, but it would not work. At the end of a half hour he was no better prepared to face Sarah than he had been in the beginning. Just as he was repeating for the fiftieth time the dreadful fib that he would be master in his own house or he would know the reason why, Sarah passed the porch. She wore a white dimity sunbonnet, although the sun had gone down in the west, and carried a small watering-pot. She had been giving her asters a shower-bath by way of encouraging them to flower early. She did not appear to notice General Haines.

"Sarah," said the General.

The sunbonneted head turned in his direction, but there was no other evidence of interest.

"Sarah, let us take tea in the library, this evening," the General continued, in what he believed to be a persuasive tone.

"Very well," came from the depths of the sunbonnet.

The General had intended to speak of the telegram, but there was something ominous in the movements of that hidden head, and he decided to temporize. "Ahem!" he began, "I shall have something to say to you, then."

Thus ended the dialogue between the General and the sunbonnet, for Sarah