The Daring Twins

That Saturday was a great day for the Darings.

“We’re going to have a good long talk together,” announced Cousin Judith at breakfast. “Just as soon as I get my room in order and Phœbe makes your beds we will get together in the parlor and begin to get acquainted.”

“Oh, not the parlor, please,” protested Don. “It’s so gloomy there.”

“The pahlah will spoil all our fun,” added Sue.

“Then you must come to my own room,” decided Cousin Judith.

Becky went out on the porch while the preparations were pending and saw the Randolph children, faultlessly attired, standing hand in hand just across the street.

“Hello, Becky!” shouted Allerton. “Come on over.”

Doris turned to him reprovingly. Then she raised her voice to Becky and said:

“My brother wishes to invite you to join us.”

“Can’t go you,” returned Becky, carelessly. “My Cousin Judith’s come, an’ we’re goin’ to have some chin music.”

“May I inquire what sort of an entertainment you refer to?” asked Doris, coming a little nearer.

“You may,” said Becky, graciously.

Doris waited, still holding her brother’s hand. To Becky it seemed absurd that such a big boy and girl should act so much like infants. So far, her acquaintance with the Randolphs had only interested her because she could “guy them” unmercifully, without their discovering it.

Allerton’s patience was not equal to that of his demure sister.

“Please tell us,” he pleaded.

“If you had a good chance, Al, you’d soon blossom into a boy – quite a decent boy,” remarked Becky, reflectively. “The trouble is, you’ll never get a chance in that stuck-up crowd you train with. Why don’t you run away and be a man?”

“I am scarcely old enough, I fear,” he sighed.

“Then be a bootblack, or a chimney sweep, or a robber, or – or —anything!”

“Oh, Rebecca!” wailed Doris, greatly shocked. “How sadly the lightness of your mind is reflected in your words!”

“By cracky, you’ve got me going,” returned Becky, despondently. “What does it, Doris; religion, or Boston kindergartens?”

“You have not yet told us what ‘chin music’ means,” suggested Allerton, with much interest. “It is a new term to us.”

“It means a confab, that’s all.”

“You must pardon our ignorance,” Doris observed, in her most proper manner. “Our vocabulary, you know, is limited to authorized words; yet with you the English language seems to have been amplified, and the grammatical construction of many sentences altered. Is it an idiom peculiar to this section of the country, or have you authority for the use of such unusual expressions?”

Somehow, Becky felt distinctly abashed. She might laugh at the proper speech of Doris Randolph and regard it in the light of a good joke; but, after all, she experienced a humiliating sense of her own crudeness and lack of refinement whenever the new neighbors engaged her in conversation.

Of course she resented this feeling, which intruded itself, unasked. The Darings were as good as the Randolphs, any day, she mentally declared, knowing all the time the thought was an admission of inferiority. Becky had had careful training once upon a time, and her dead mother’s injunction never to forget her personal dignity, nor give to others an opportunity to disparage it, was not wholly forgotten by the girl. She well knew that she had cultivated the slang of the streets and their rabble because some of her village associates considered it amusing and had encouraged her by their laughter. So, although the reproaches of the carefully trained Randolph children were only implied, through their complete ignorance of such phrases, the girl felt them nevertheless, and this made her bitter and more reckless than ever.

Fortunately, Phœbe called to her just then and with a shout of “So long, bully Bostoners!” she ran in to attend the gathering in Cousin Judith’s room.

Now it chanced that Miss Eliot had overheard, through her open window, the conversation exchanged across the street by Becky and her neighbors, and her sweet face flushed painfully while she listened. That a daughter of gentle, refined Molly Eliot should exhibit coarseness and vulgarity amazed and annoyed her. More than once during the brief day since her arrival she had winced at the rude sallies of Becky and Don, and even little Sue had sometimes offended her sensitive ears.

“There are many difficulties to be surmounted and plenty of hard work ahead of me, I fear,” she thought, with a sigh of regret. “But my duty to these waifs is plain, and I must pray for strength and wisdom to accomplish it.”

Then she turned and showed a smiling face as the Darings trooped in, an eager group. Many were their exclamations of pleasure as they examined Cousin Judith’s “pretty things,” and even Becky was so thoroughly delighted and turned her clear hazel eyes so adoringly upon her cousin that her recent rudeness was almost condoned.

Judith began with a relation of her own history, including many incidents of her life abroad and the hard struggle she had faced to win recognition as an artist. Then she told them of the deep affection that had always existed between her and “Cousin Molly,” the mother of the absorbed audience. She had been deeply pained at Molly’s death, and when, three years later, Molly’s children lost their father – their only natural protector – Judith had remembered that she was their nearest relative, next to Gran’pa Eliot, and it seemed her duty to go to them and help them to face the world and become the noble men and women their dear mother so fondly wished them to be.

The Darings were duly impressed and affected. Sue and Phœbe sobbed a little, and Phil wiped his eyes more than once. Donald was not so emotional but looked grave and thoughtful, while Becky’s face was white and set as she realized how little credit she had thus far reflected on the sweet, gentle mother who had been prematurely taken from them.

“What I wish,” said Judith, wistfully, “is to become a second mother to dear Molly’s children; to do for them what I think Molly would have done, had she lived. But I cannot acquire such a proud position, my dears, without your full and free consent. You must talk this over among yourselves and decide if you are willing to adopt me.”

Phœbe wrapped her arms around the speaker and kissed her cheek, while tears trembled on her dark lashes.

“Oh, Cousin Judith!” she said; “we’re so happy, and so grateful!”

Becky knelt at Judith’s feet and buried her head in her lap. Sue came like a dainty fairy to find a refuge in Judith’s embrace.

“I’d like another mamma – awful well!” she whispered; “and I couldn’t find a lovelier one than you, Cousin Judith.”

“You’ve given up a good deal for us,” Phil remarked in a husky voice, “and I’m afraid we’re not worth it, at all. But the – the youngsters need some sort of a mother, Cousin, and Phœbe and I need some one to advise us and help us in our times of trouble and worry. So we – we haven’t the courage to refuse your generous offer.”

“It won’t need a vote,” asserted Don, scowling darkly to keep from crying. “You’re elected unanimous, Little Mother; an’ that settles it.”

Judith smiled and kissed them all in turn, big and little. Then she said, very seriously:

“This alliance, my dears, means a good deal to all of us, and must not be undertaken lightly. We must have a fair and square agreement, on both sides, setting forth and defining what we have undertaken.”

They were very attentive, at this.

“First,” she continued, “I want to tell you that I am going to love each one of you, dearly, and I want you to promise you will try to love me in return.”

“Why, we do already!” exclaimed Sue, and Judith felt that she answered for all.

“The duty of a mother,” she explained, “is not only to love her children, but to train them properly. She must correct their faults, direct their amusements, attend to their deportment, laugh when they are glad and grieve over their sorrows. And they, in turn, must be content to be guided by her larger experience in life and willing to obey her in everything.”

“Of course,” said Becky, nodding. “We’ll agree to all that, Cousin Judith.”

“I long to have you grow up to be admired and respected by all you meet, as your father and mother were. Do you realize how proud a thing it is to be a Daring? You bear an honored name, my dears – a name that has always stood for nobility, truth, generosity and culture. You must guard that name, jealously, so as not only to reflect credit upon your parentage, but to win for yourselves the approval of the world.”

The awed silence that greeted this speech was broken by Donald. Perhaps he was really more affected than any of the others; I think his very soul was stirred by a desire to be a credit to his name and to himself. But he said bluntly and with a mischievous grin:

“You girls needn’t worry. You’ll change your names some day – if you’re lucky!”

It relieved the tense situation and they all laughed, including Judith. But she meant the lesson to be impressive and not easily forgotten, so she hailed a suggestion from Becky, which was perhaps intended to be as flippant as Donald’s remark.

“Let’s draw up an agreement, and all sign it,” cried the girl. “Phœbe has a typewriter, and we won’t need any lawyer.”