"Here we are, auntie, or here I am and here is she."
"Come along, then, my dears."
"Well, indeed, I never did," said William, when he entered the kitchen; "no, I never, never did see such a likeness between two young leddies. They are the same picture as each other! And missus says to me, 'William,' she says, 'this is Miss Gwladys's sister, her twin-sister,' she says, 'Miss Valmai Powell.' And I couldn't say nothing, if you believe me, with my eyes as big as saucers. Ach y fi! there's an odd thing!"
In the drawing-room after dinner there were endless questions and answers, each one seeming to find in the other's history a subject of the deepest interest. Mrs. Besborough Power, especially, with her nose in the air, sometimes looking over her spectacles, and sometimes under them, sometimes through them, did not hesitate to question Valmai on the minutest particulars of her life hitherto—questions which the latter found it rather difficult to answer without referring to the last eighteen months.
"H'm!" said Mrs. Power, for the twentieth time, "and ever since your father's death you have been living with your uncle?"
"With my uncles, first one and then the other; and the last few months with dear Nance, my old nurse."
"What! Nance Owen? Is she alive still?"
"Yes; she is, indeed."
"She must be very old now?"
"Yes, and frail; but as loving and tender as ever."