The Gray Gentleman smiled.
“That would be going to the other extreme, my dear, and would help neither you nor them. Besides, this is not all we came to see, and here we are!”
Then the street had suddenly ended and the carriage had turned in at a big gate, to roll almost silently onward till it stopped before a “Mansion,” with ancient wooden shutters and a clematis-draped porch. This was natural and quite suggestive to Bonny-Gay of her own beloved Druid Hill, wherein she was accustomed to take her stately drives in her father’s own carriage; and when she heard the shouts and laughter of children from the tree-hidden “Playgrounds,” her spirits rose to the normal again and she laughed in return.
Dancing along beside him, with her hand in his, she had demanded eagerly:
“Is it here I am to see my ‘twin sister?’ Oh! I want to find her—quick, quick!”
“Yes, it is here, and this is—she;” answered her guide, as they paused behind Jimmy and Mary Jane, toward whom he silently nodded.
This was how the pair met; and while Mary Jane saw what she fancied was an “angel” that which Bonny-Gay saw was a girl of her own age, with short, limp legs, very long arms, and a crooked back. But the dark head above the poor humped shoulders was as shapely as the “angel’s” own; the dark eyes as beautiful as the blue ones; and from the wide, merry mouth flashed a smile quite as radiant and winning.
As soon as she saw the smile Bonny-Gay began to understand what the Gray Gentleman had meant, and she telegraphed him a glance that said she did. Then she laughed and held out her two hands to Mary Jane.
“I guess you’re the girl I’ve come to see: my ‘twin sister!’ How-de-do?”
“How-de-do?” echoed Mary Jane, too astonished to say more.