"But how do you young English girls so well understand these points of difference when—"
"Oh, but we're not English girls!" cried Hope.
"That is, not entirely," qualified Faith. "Our mother was English—"
"But our father's American!" Hope finished the sentence with a triumphant air, and her visitor laughed.
"You seem proud of it, too," she said.
"I am. Faith does not care so much, but I'm very glad it is so. We went across with father and Debby once, and stayed a year. It was such a pleasant time! Father's people live in an old town they call Lynn—such a pretty, shady place, with a drowsy air that wakes into real life two or three times a day, when the factory people stream through the streets—for you see they make shoes there."
"Do they?" asked the lady with a peculiar smile, as if this were not great news to her.
"Yes. Uncle Albert's house, where we lived, was almost hidden beneath great elm trees, and he and Aunt Clarice were so good to us."
"And we kept bees," put in Faith, looking exactly like her twin in her sudden animation. "I used to help uncle swarm them myself."
"And we went down to Boston every few weeks," Hope crowded in again, "and that was fine. I love Boston. Its narrow, crooked streets make me think of our own Portsmouth, here, but with a difference. And oh! the gardens, and the Common, and the Museum—"