“How old are they?”
“About twelve. Nice age! All legs and arms and imagination.”
“Dear me! Do you know them well?”
“Haven’t seen them since they were two little red mites in their cradle.”
“Then you merely imagine they are so very terrible.”
“I heard enough about them from Frank, Frank Birdsall. That was their father’s name. He used to be very fond of talking about them. Proud as Lucifer, he was, of Ralph and Rowena. And his wife—”
“Oh! Of course, the mother is dead, too.”
“That was what killed Frank, I verily believe,” said Mr. Howbridge gravely. “She died two years ago at a camp he owned up near the Canadian border. Red Deer Lodge it is called. Mrs. Birdsall was flung from her horse.
“It crushed her husband. He brought the children away from there (they had spent much of their time up in the wilderness, for they loved it) and never went back again.
“That’s another piece of work he’s left me. Because he did not want ever to see the Lodge again, I have to go up there—now, in mid-winter—and attend to something that’s been hanging fire too long already. It is a nuisance.”