“He looked at me a minute—all over—and half laughed, and I thought he was going to say I wasn’t worth anything. It wouldn’t have been true, but I thought he might, because I’m only twelve years old. It’s pretty hard to be only twelve when you want to get work. But he didn’t, he said, ‘Well, I’m darned if I won’t give you a show;’ and I’m to have a dollar a week.”
“Robin,” Meg cried, with a little gasp of excitement, “so am I!”
“So are you!” cried Robin, and sat bolt upright. “You!”
“It’s—it’s because we are twins,” said Meg, her eyes shining like lamps. “I told you twins did things alike because they couldn’t help it. We have both thought of the same thing. I went to Aunt Matilda, asked her to let me work somewhere and pay me, and she let me go into the dairy and try, and Mrs. Macartney said I was a help, and I am to have a dollar a week, if I go on as I’ve begun.”
Robin’s hand gave hers a clutch, just as it had done before, that day when he had not known why.
“Meg, I believe,” he said, “I believe that we two will always go on as we begin. I believe we were born that way. We have to, we can’t help it. And two dollars a week, if they keep us, and we save it all—we could go almost anywhere—sometime.”
Meg’s eyes were fixed on him with a searching, but half frightened expression.
“Almost anywhere,” she said, quite in a whisper. “Anywhere not more than a hundred miles away.”
V
They did not tell each other of the strange and bold thought which had leaped up in their minds that day. Each felt an unwonted shyness about it, perhaps because it had been so bold; but it had been in each mind, and hidden though it was, it remained furtively in both.