When they had repeated it several times, Berta added, "But we's going to call them other names, Mother,——King Cole and Queen Mab for the father and mother birds; and can you 'member us of a prince and princess for the chillun birds?"
"The young birds, dear. A prince and princess? So you wish to have a royal family, do you? Let me see. What would you think of Prince Charming and Princess Winsome?"
"They're great, Aunt 'Lisbeth!"
"Jes' beauty, Mother!" And the twins danced about in great glee.
"It is time to find Jerry if you wish to take Aunt Mary some fruit and flowers. Come, we shall see whether he is in the garden."
Promptly at eleven o'clock, the four climbed the high front steps at the convent, the little girls with great bundles of flowers, the boys with a basket of peaches and grapes between them. Mother Madeline, busy as she was, took them to her office and gave each of them a pretty holy picture and a little medal, and then sent for Mary and Wilhelmina to look after them. Such a time as the girls made over them. Those who had been with Mary during the lonely years when she had been separated from her little sisters, crowded around the twins in particular, until Mary, fearing that the boys might be hurt, hurried the four away to the Kindergarten. Then the bell rang for dismissal, and with little Dorothy among them, they romped home to luncheon.
CHAPTER XV.
ONLY THE BEGINNING.
"No Beth, I jes' doesn't know what we's going to do 'bout it, so I doesn't." Berta seated herself on the lowest of the front steps, and with her dimpled elbows propped on her knees and her dimpled chin in her hands, stared straight ahead of her, winking very hard. "They isn't nennybody to play with nenny more, not ever, ever at all."