“There, lie down now,” he said. “They’re great treasures, but both together worth less to me than their mother; and I can’t have her running any risks. Mamma, dear, what do you think of your new grandchildren?”
“Just what the new-made parents do,” she answered, bending over them from the other side of the bed. “Welcome, welcome, little strangers! there is plenty of room in grandma’s heart for you both.”
“Our birthday gift to you, mamma,” said Zoe.
“What, giving them away already?” queried Edward playfully, “and that without consulting me!”
“Only as grandchildren,” she answered in the same tone. “You and I are papa and mamma. Ah, how delightfully odd it seems! Poor little dears, to have such a silly young thing for their mother,” she added sorrowfully, reaching out a hand and softly touching the tiny faces with the tips of her fingers. “But then they have a good papa, and such a dear, wise grandma. Are you pleased? Will you take them for your birthday gift from me, mamma?” lifting loving, entreating eyes to the sweet face of her mother-in-law.
“Indeed I will, dear child. You could have given me nothing more acceptable,” bending down to touch her lips softly to the velvet cheek of first the one and then the other. “Which is the boy and which the girl, Ned?”
“I really don’t know, mamma,” he said, laughing, “for, as their mother says, they are as like as two peas.”
“We’ll have to put some sort of mark on them,” said Zoe, gloating over her new treasures, “else one may often be blamed for the other’s faults. Ah, I wonder whether they will be wise and good like their father, or silly like their mother.”
“You are slandering their mother, and I can’t allow it,” Edward said, frowning in mock indignation. “But you weren’t to talk. You must be quiet, or I’ll have to run away.”
“We’ll have use for both our names, Ned,” remarked Zoe, smiling up into her husband’s face, the next time he came to her bedside.