"I ain't."
"My eyes! don't it smell fine? Oh! I do wish father'd come. He's allus a long time when the supper's 'ot;" and Bob, as he spoke, heaved a sigh of such prodigious depth that it might have come from his boots—if he had possessed any, poor little man!
These two small boys, Tom and Bob Gull, were six years old.
"We is only twinses," Bob would say.
Perhaps he said "only" to make us understand that they were just alike in the matter of age, but that there the likeness ended.
Bob, the merry and talkative, was the one who led Tom, the quiet and silent. Bob's twinkling, puppy-like eyes—which peeped at you through a tangled fringe of brown hair—were the exact contrast to Tom's shy blue eyes, shaded by long, fair, girlish lashes. And Bob's jolly little round figure seemed to say, "Anything, be it meagre soup or even dry bread, fattens me;" while Tom's thin little limbs gave one a thought of unconscious cravings for appetising food.
The room where they were watching for father was a third floor front in Pleasant Court, not far from Waterloo Junction. Like many such "living-rooms," it can be best described by telling you that everything in it which should be large was small, and the other way about.
For instance, the fireplace was small and the crack under the door very large. The cupboard was very roomy, but the things kept in it very much too small and scarce. The bed was wide, but the blanket and counterpane sadly narrow.
Was there nothing that was as big as it should be?
Yes, indeed! In spite of these unsatisfactory surroundings, there was as large-hearted a love to be found in the small family which these four walls sheltered from the cold outside world, as any one could wish to see.