“What do you think of that? And you suggest my keeping those twins—those two wild youngsters—in my home!”
“I will tell you what I think of that telegram,” said the oldest Kenway girl, handing the yellow sheet of paper back to him. “I think that man Rodgers is not a fit person to have charge of the boy and girl.”
“Why not?” he asked in surprise.
“Imagine thinking of dragging a pond in mid-winter—or at any other time of the year—for two healthy children! First idea the man seems to have. I guess the twins had reason for running away.”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Agnes, who deliberately listened.
“Why, they have known Rodgers all their lives!”
“Perhaps that is why they have run away,” said Ruth, smiling. “Rodgers sounds to me—from his telegram—as though he had one awful lack.”
“You frighten me. What lack?”
“Lack of a sense of humor. And that is fatal in the character of anybody who has a pair of twins on his hands.”
Mr. Howbridge threw up his own hands in amazement. “I must lack that myself,” he said. “I see nothing funny, at least, in the idea of having Ralph and Rowena Birdsall in my house.”