The fresh young voices broke out into a duet: "We told him to ask papa."
"We were both so overwhelmed by this catastrophe," pursued the story-teller, "that we vowed for mutual self-protection against our besetting temptation to fribble at the other's expense, never to let each other out of sight. In the farces all the mistakes happen through the twins being on only one at a time. Thus have we balanced each other's tendencies to indiscretion before it was too late, and saved ourselves from ourselves. This necessity of being always together, imposed on us by our unhappy resemblance, naturally excludes either from marriage."
Lillie was not favorably impressed with these skittish sisters. "I sympathize intensely with the sufferings of either," she said slily, "in being constrained to the society of the other. But your motives of celibacy are not sufficiently pure, nor have you fulfilled our prime condition, for even granting that your reply to the eligible young Churchman was tantamount to a rejection, it still only amounts to a half rejection each, which is fifty per cent. below our standard."
She rang the bell. Turple the magnificent ushered the twins out and the next candidate in. She was an ethereal blonde in a simple white frock, and her story was as simple.
"Read this Rondeau," she said. "It will tell you all."
Lillie took the lines. They were headed
THE LOVELY MAY—AN OLD MAID'S PLAINT.
The lovely May at last is here,
Long summer days are drawing near,
And nights with cloudless moonshine rich;
In woodlands green, on waters clear,
Soft-couched in fern, or on the mere,
Gliding like some white water-witch,
Or lunching in a leafy niche,
I see my sweet-faced sister dear,
The lovely May.
She is engaged—and her career
Is one of skittles blent with beer,
While I, plain sewing left to stitch,
Can ne'er expect those pleasures which,
At this bright season of the year,
The lovely may.
Lillie looked up interrogatively. "But surely you have nothing to complain of in the way of loveliness?" she said.