"To school!" shouted the twins simultaneously.
"Yes," Mrs. Orban said, "actually to school. He wishes you to have exactly the same advantages as Brenda and Herbert. Won't it be splendid for you?"
There was dead silence. Mrs. Orban glanced from one grave face to the other. Nesta's was crumpled and bewildered; Eustace's very white, and his expression sadly strained.
"Why, darlings," Mrs. Orban said, "you have always wanted to go to school. Hasn't it nearly made me cry again and again to hear you craving for a thing we could not give you? And now your wishes have been granted as it were by magic, I do believe you are not glad after all."
There was such a ring of disappointment in their mother's voice that even Nesta was roused.
"We've wanted it awfully," stammered Eustace awkwardly, "but we—we didn't think of it coming quite so soon."
"Oh, is that it, you dears?" Mrs. Orban said in a tone between laughter and tears. "I was afraid something much worse was the matter—that you had changed your minds, for instance, or that you didn't like England after all; but of course that couldn't be."
She spoke with such perfect certainty that the twins were dumb; they could think of nothing to say.
"There really is rather a blessing in disguise in your going to school at once, though I can't bear parting with you," Mrs. Orban went on after a little silence. "I shall be quite close to you while you are still feeling strange in your new life; I shall hear all about everything from you by word of mouth in the holidays; and I shall go away next year feeling content that you are settled down, and likely to be nothing but a tiny bit mammy-sick at my departure."
Eustace rubbed his head against her shoulder.