Laura, looking wonderfully fresh and young in a lace morning négligé of the peek-a-boo description, poured out his coffee at breakfast and sympathized with him about the headache he denied. Then, shaded by a fluffy black-and-white sunshade, the widow led Galahad out into the sunny garden to a tree-shaded and sequestered nook where West Indian hammocks hung, and, installing herself in one of these receptacles, invited her husband’s cousin to repose himself in another.
Lying on your back, counting ripening plums dangling from green branches above, oscillating at the bidding of the lightest breeze, liable to upset at the slightest movement, it is difficult to be indignant and sarcastic; but Galahad was both.
“Adopt these young men as sons, my dear Laura! Are there no parentless babies in the local workhouse that would better supply the need you express of having something to cherish and love?” exclaimed Galahad.
He sat up with an effort and stared at Laura. Laura rocked, prone amid cushions, knitting a silk necktie of a tender hue suited to a blonde complexion.
“Workhouse babies are invariably ugly, and unhealthy into the bargain,” she pouted.
“Some orphan child from a Home, that is pretty to look at and has had the distemper properly,” suggested Galahad.
“I don’t want an orphan from a Home,” objected Laura. “Besides, it wouldn’t be a twin.”
“There are such things as twin orphans, my dear Laura,” protested Galahad.
But Laura was firm.
“Dosy and Brosy are very, very dear to me,” she protested, a little pinkness about the eyelids and nostrils threatening an impending tear-shower. “They came into my life,” she continued poetically, “at a time of sorrow and bereavement, and the sunshine of their presence drove the dark clouds away. Of course, they are too old, or, rather, not young enough, to be really my sons,” she continued, “but they might have been poor Tom’s.”