It had been an odd whim of nature to make the Twins so utterly unlike. No stranger ever took Violet Anastasia Dangerfield, so dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-skinned, of so rich a coloring, so changeful and piquant a face, for the cousin, much less for the twin-sister, of Hyacinth Wolfram Dangerfield, so fair-skinned, fair-haired, blue-eyed, on whose firmly chiseled features rested so perpetual, so contrasting a serenity. But it was a whim of man, of their wicked uncle Sir Maurice Falconer, that had robbed them of their pretty names. He had named Violet “Erebus” because, he said,
She walks in beauty like the night Of cloudless climes and starry spheres:
and he had forthwith named Hyacinth the “Terror” because, he said, the ill-fated Sir John Franklin had made the Terror the eternal companion of Erebus.
Erebus and the Terror they became. Even their mother never called them by their proper pretty names save in moments of the severest displeasure.
“They’re good apples,” said the Terror presently, as he threw away the core of his third and took two more from the bag.
“They are,” said Erebus in a grateful tone—“worth all the trouble we had with that dog.”
“We’d have cleared him out of the orchard in half the time, if we’d had our catapults and bullets. It was hard luck being made to promise never to use catapults again,” said the Terror sadly.
“All that fuss about a little lead from the silly old belfry gutter!” said Erebus bitterly. could easily have put slates in the place of the sheet of lead we took,” said the Terror with equal bitterness.
“Why can’t they leave us alone? It quite spoils the country not to have catapults,” said Erebus, gazing with mournful eyes on the rich autumn scene through which they moved.
The Twins had several grievances against their elders; but the loss of their catapults was the bitterest. They had used those weapons to enrich the simple diet which was all their mother’s slender means allowed them; on fortunate days they had enriched it in defiance of the game laws. Keepers and farmers had made no secret of their suspicions that this was the case: but the careful Twins never afforded them the pleasure of adducing evidence in support of those suspicions. Then a heavy thunderstorm revealed the fact that they had removed a sheet of lead, which they had regarded as otiose, from the belfry gutter, to cast it into bullets for their catapults; a consensus of the public opinion of Little Deeping had demanded that they should be deprived of them; and their mother, yielding to the