"We were settled down in a quiet stream of labour, thinking that there would be no change. I see a great change coming over us now."
"What change?"
"Joseph, if it were not for Humphrey I should rejoice. I should say, 'Take her; be happy in your own way.' For me, I only sing of love. I might perhaps sing as well in a garret and on a crust of bread, therefore it matters nothing. It is for Humphrey that I feel. How can that delicately-organised creature, to whom warmth, comfort and ease are as necessary as sunshine to the flower, face the outer world? For his sake, I ask you, Joseph, to reconsider your project, and pause before you commit yourself."
Joseph was accustomed to this kind of estimate which one Twin invariably made of the other, but the reason for making it staggered him. He actually blushed. Being forty years of age, a bachelor, and a lawyer—on all these grounds presumably acquainted with the world and with the sex—he blushed on being accused of nothing more than a mere tendency in the direction of marriage.
"This is the strangest whim!" he said. "Why, Cornelius, I am as likely to marry Phillis Fleming as I am to send Humphrey into the cold. Dismiss the thought at once, and let the matter be mentioned no more. Good-night, Cornelius."
He turned to his papers again with the look of one who wishes to be alone. These Twins were a great pride to him, but he could not help sometimes feeling the slightest possible annoyance that they were not as other men. Still they were his charge, and in their future glory his own name would play an honourable part.
"Good-night, Cornelius. It is good of you to think of Humphrey first. I shall not marry—either the child Phillis Fleming or any other woman."
"Good-night, my dear Joseph. You have relieved my mind of a great anxiety. Good-night."
Five minutes afterwards the door opened again.
Joseph looked around impatiently.