Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1876 — THE TWINS. [ARTICLE]

THE TWINS.

BY MARY N. PRESCOTT. “There, say anything that comes into your head, Silvia—anything that’s nice and sentimental, and sounds as if I knew all creation and had studied and read and thought no end; anything so that he won’t guess what a miserable little dunce 1 am. Only don’t bother me about it!” “And supposing he finds out?” “Finds out! How 1 in the name of goodness is he going to find out unless you up and tell him?” “I sha’n’t tell him. But it doesn’t seem right; my conscience rebukes me. I wake up sometimes at dead of night in assort of nightmare, where I see him treading your letters under foot and his eyes like javelins!” “It’s high time a-day for you to sit there and lecture me, Silvia, and prate about your conscience. I know what I’m about; write the letters and keep the dreams to yourself. What business had you to be dreaming about my lover, let me ask ? A pretty case of conscience!” “ The same business that I have to be ■writing to him, I suppose.” “ You write to him because I require it; and papa hires and pays you to be a companion to me and to do what I will. I don’t see that you need trouble yourself at all about it unless you want to throw up the situation and oblige me to get used to a new companion." “You might find the change of handwriting embarrassing, to be sure,” laughed Silvia. “ It’s very generous of you to remind me of that dilemma, now, isn’t it? And just to show me how dependent I am upon you? Perhaps it’s a bid for a higher figure. I always mistrust your high and mighty conscientious folks.” “ You know me better,” answered Silvia. “ I was only thinking that you were laying up trouble for yourself.” “ That needn’t trouble you." “ It annoys me that I should be obliged to aid and abet you in the undertaking.” “‘Sweet sensibility! Oh, la!’ You may resign your situation and find a better if you can. I’m almost afraid to keep such a saint in the house." “ Situations don’t grow on bushes, and laborers are thicker than flies in August; and Mme. Genesis would turn the twins out of house and home if I omitted a quarterly payment, you know.” “ Well, what’s the need of so much pother? It’s only a matter of choosing between your conscience—whiqh is only another name for your own comfort—and the welfare of the twins. We’ll see which you love best, you goody-goody! And, after all, I can’t understand that your poor conscience has anything to do in the matter. You’re always magnifying trifles—looking through your Puritan spectacles at them.” Silvia sat down at the davenport and took up the pen. “ You could write as good a letter as I if you chose.” “ But I don’t choose to be bothered.” “ It wouldn’t be any bother to me ” began Silvia. “ Then you’d better do it without any comments.”,, “ I mean to write my own love-letters s ?’ “ That’s because it would be such a novelty, perhaps.” “ Now don’t be rude, Luna. I was only thinking what a pleasure you lose.” “ I can afford it; and my loss is your gain.” “ I know if you would only give a little practice to it your handwriting would be finer than mine. Let me beg you to try. A half hour daily would work magic.” “ Pshaw! I wouldn’t be hired to waste so much time on it. I hate to write; and what is money good for if it can’t relieve me of doing things I hate to do? The girls at school used to write my compositions, and weren’t half as fussy as you, though I pay them. And nobody found it out, either.” “ But I should so hate to deceive my lover.”

“ Wait till you get one. And as to that, the deception has begun, and would only make things worse to confess,” “ And when you’re married.” “La, I shall get my letters then —or yours, rather—and burn them up, provided he has not done so already. And he’ll forget whether I wrote well or ill; and, like as not, won’t care a fig.” “And are you in love with him?” “I call that an impertinent Question, Silvia. It implies a doubt. Most of the girls are in love with him, let me tell you. Perhaps you’ll experience a shock when you see him. He isn’t so stunningly handsome; but he has those seductive manners that make mere beauty a bagatelle—l read that somewhere—and he’s rich, rich as mud, and descended from the great Mogul, for all I can tell. He knows enough to run two or three colleges, 1 believe; and when I’m Mrs. Prof. Shale it won’t signify whether I write in Choctaw or hieroglyphics, and nobody will ask whether my grandfather was a soap-boiler or a cobbler. I shall be at the top wave of society; don’t you see?” “Iconfess that I don’t see with your eyes.” “But don’t you wish you could? ‘ Sweetest eyes were ever seen,’so Max calls them—not that I’m a bit proud ot them I Aren't those gloves a perfect fit ? A philopena gift from Mr. Mushroom.! Now I’m going out and you may finish the letter and leave it for me to read. . I know it will be a gem. Max says my letters always are. Hai ha! He says it almost makes amends for absence to receive one. So consider yourself complimented.” “ Poor Max!” “ Poor Max, indee|! Didn’t I just tell

you that he’s rich as-Crcesus, whoever he was? By the way. if I’m not here earlv you had better send the.,letter off to catch the evening mail—he’ll be so sorry not to receive one to-morrow.” • “And isn’t there anything in particular that you wish me to say in it? Can’t you send'some message of your own? Let me tell you it’s no fool of a job to write a loveletter to a man you never saw.” “Oh! you always hit upon the right things to say. Play that you had known him always-and loved him dearly.” “But just give me a message of your own,” pleaded Silvia. “ Oh! well, tell him the last book he sent me was absorbing—of course it was or he wouldn’t have sent it, and you must know for I saw you reading it; I’ really haven’t had time to open it—-but you needn’t add that.” “ Oh! dear, dear.” “Why did you buy it at that price?” laughed Luna*. “Can’t you say’ anything—anything affectionate ? How am I to do all that sort of thing in cold blood?” “ Why, don’t travel out of your way to say spooney things; write naturally, just as if we were talking together, he and I." “ How do 1 know what you would say to him if you were talking together?” “ How can I tell you ‘in cold blood ?’ Can’t you imagine?” “ I may compromise you; I may be too gushing or too frigid.” “Never fear. The King can do no wrong. There’s his last letter; maybe it will give you the cue. I declare, if you make such a fuss I shall be sorry I ever set you about it.” “ I am sorry already.” “ The bargain’s made and the money’s paid,” murmured Luna, significantly, as she closed the door. Silvia opened “his last letter” and sighed. What a pleasant one it was, to be sure, and how little appreciated. Sweetness wasted on the desert air. Supposing it were her own. Would anyone ever write to her like that? A genuine loveletter, meant for no eye but his sweetheart’s, yet howMesecrated. The old line said “ Men were deceivers ever.” Had they taught women the craft? Here was she professing sentiments she did not feel, to a man she had never seen. Was not the-sin as much hers as Luna’s? Ought she not (to resign her situation, rather, and trust to Providence for another ? But there were the twins—two little baby sisters, with only her to look to, only her between them and the poor-house. Had she a right to jeopardize their welfare for a scruple, as Luna had hinted? Tniswas not the first time, to be sure, that she had lent herself to the fraud; but on each occasion she bad wrestled with herself and had been worsted by necessity. In fact, she had been trapped into it at the beginning, Luna had yawned one day and said: “Come, Silvia, dear; Max has been away a fortnight and I haven’t written him once. We were never separated before. I never wrote him a line in my life; but, goodness, how his letters are accumulating!” tossing a half-score on the table, “and something must be done. I hate writing. I was never taught. I learned to flirt and dance and parley vmis in board-ing-school. I learned small talk—very small talk—and crochet; but my handwriting is all pothooks and skewers. Max would never speak to me again if he once caught sight of it; I know he wouldn’t. And as to composition, I can’t say boo! to a goose, on paper! I haven’t any head for it. And his letters are real poems. Do dash off something, that’s a love. Let me see what you’d say, supposing you had a lover like Max—which would be an impossibility, of course. But there are his letters. Read them.”

And so, in a frolic vain, Silvia dashed off a love-letter in the merriest mood to an unknown Max, with just enough love in it for flavoring and coquetry, just enough to tantalize and make a man’s mouth water for more, and signed it “your devoted Moonshine,” in travesty of Luna’s nfune. “ Splendid!” cried Luna, reading it over Silvia’s shoulder. “ What practice you must have had.” “ I never wrote a love-letter in my lite,” said Silvia. “Why, what are you going to do?” asked Luna, precipitately, arresting the half-dried sheet that Silvia waved in the air. “Tear it up, of course.” “Never! It’s a work of art. Let me read it again, myself, before you make away with it. But Silvia fired with indignation later, When she learned that my lady Luna had dispatched the letter to Max as her own. . ‘ * Oh I how could you ? How could you ?’ ’ cried Silvia. “ It was just the easiest and the neatest thing in the world. He had left me an envelope all directed to himself, for fear I should forget. And he gives me no end of credit for my brilliant talentcalls une a Sevigne,' whoever she maybe. Ha! ha!” “ Haven’t you any conscience, Luna?” “My dear, you have enough for us both.” Hut every little while since then Silvia’s conscience, as well as her common sense, had taken alarm; .but all the same the letters were written, and Max delighted. She used to lie awake nights trying to devise a scheme for extricating Luna and herself from the situation; and,, after all, the only one which she could invent was that which Luna scorned and would none of. r After Luna had taken herself off to the promenade Silvia dipped her pen into the gold and ebony ink-stand and wrote freely as if she were indeed holding sweet converse with a familiar affinity. It was something, at least, to be able to utter the thoughts that surged in her soul, to express herself under this mask. It was an opportunity for companionship from which she was in a manner cut off in all other directions. The opinions and fancies of Silvia Johnson, a needy day laborer, counted for nothing in the society about her, and it was only when she put on her disguise and wrote to another woman’s iover that they hit the mark and were received with encores. How wonderful that he should appreciate and respond to all her extravagances and transcendental notions, as if there had already been some secret magnetic understanding between them, before circumstances had thrown them, mentally, in each other’s way. Was it only love for Luna, orVwas it the unconscious groping of a soul for its twin, which caused every word of Silvia’s to receive such hearty approbation, and every truth she expressed seem an inborn instinct of the other’s being? One day she tried an experiment. She wrote in this wise: “ I must tell you o the strangest thing that happened to an ac quaintance of mine. She was ambitious, very naturally, to appear well in her lover’s eyes. One day he foolishly went away, and, being a bad pen-woman and aware of other mental deficiencies, which, however, only needed time and care, for

their Improvement, she employed a friend to write her love-letters! “ Imagine her lover’s dismay when he discovered the fact! How should you have acted in his place?” “ The womarn who could so cruelly deceive would deserve my unbounded contempt, as well as the friend who should lend herself to the fraud," he answered. “There,” said Silvia, “you have his opinion of us.” “ La, he’ll never suspect me—and in for a penny, in for a pound," laughed Luna. “ Would you never forgive her?” Silvia asked, pursuing the subject in hqr next letter, “when it was only love for you, and a mistaken wish to secure your approbation, that prompted the action?” “ I could never love such a woman again, not if she repented in sackcloth and ashes,” he returned, in reply, “and such women are not apt to repent.” “ Oh! Luna, Luna!’’ jj cried Silvia, terrified at the confession she had wrung from Prof. Max, “ whatever will you do?” “ Take care that lie never finds me out —eternal vigilance, and all that; and, after all, there’s as good fish in the sea. I’m not a bit scared; there’d be a rumpus and a row; but bless you, he’d come to his senses presently, hecouldn’t help himself; the moth and the candle, you know! Heaven save us, what are you crying for?” r “ I’m crying about my sins.” “Oh! all right; only it’s bad for the eyes, and it would make it inconvenient for me if you should grow blind.” “ I’m not so blind but I foresee a crisis some day, which you will rue.” “ Catch me! Besides, you will be as deep in the mud as I in the mire.” “But I am not engaged to Prof. Shale.” “ But don’t you wish you were ? Come, diy your eyes, and remember that the end will justify the means.” “ That is just what I’m afraid of.” “ Well, think of the twins, then. Max is coming back directly, and perhaps there won’t be any more letters necessary —wedding-cards instead, maybe; or perhaps I shall tell him myself and explain that it was only a joke.”" “ And it will never do to laugh at your own joke, unless you laugh the other side of your mouth.” “ Don’t be sarcastic at the expense of your friends. You’ll find my new initial paper in the left-hand drawer; you may be brief to-day, if you please. There, do I look co:nme it fault By the way, you needn’t tell Max that I’m going to the Mushrooms’ croquet party this afternoon.” “ Certainly not; how could you be writing to him and playing croquet with Mr. Bullion Mushroom’ at the same time? I suppose it will be unnecessary to mention the fact that Mr. Mushroom repeated poetry to you till nearly twelve last night on the veranda, with only the moon for duenna? Waß it ‘ Paradise Lost’ or ” “ Come, I will not be lectured, Silvia Johnson! Could I tell Mr. Mushroom to go home? Besides, they were some verses of “his own—very sweet ones, too.” “ Sonnets to a Luna—tic?” “ Well, am I to blame if he is sweet on me ? There, I shan’t parley any longer with you. Be a good girl and write your letters and think of the twins.” Silvia began to write: “My dear Max”; how droll it looked all at once. She could hardly help laughing, Jjardly help crying, but compromised and went on, and had finished and folded the letter and was in. the act of inclosing it in its addressed envelope when her two hands were suddenly imprisoned from behind, and a deep voice said over her shoulder: “A feast of reason and a flow of soul!” and a brown-bearded lip was about to touch Silvia’s white neck, when she turned her head and confronted a strange gentleman, who dropped her hands and shot half Across the room. “I have the pleasure of seeing Prof. Shale,” said Silvia, taking in the situation, and not liking it a bit, and dropping the letter in her excitemant.

“You flatter me in calling it a pleasure,” said the professor, “and I beg pardon; but not having my glasses on, I mistook you for Miss Lutestring.” And then he stooped and picked up the telltale letter, and spread it out on his knee and stared at it and then at shrinking Silvia, and selected choice morsels to hurl at her, the lightning shooting from his glance. “And this is the way in which Miss Lutestring wrote to me, eh? You are her amanuensis and mind-reader, I suppose?” i‘ I am her companion, bought and paid for,” said Silvia, withering under his eye. “Apretty pair of hypocrites —birds of a feather! I could not believe that the world held such a couple. The -conception and execution of this deceit is worthy of older heads. Shows genius of a rare type! A person capable of assisting at such a fraud can have no appreciation of its effects, so let me tell you, madam, that you have not only robbed me of a home and fireside, with all its genial influences, but you have broken my idol before my eyes and robbed me of a future, so to speak .4? “I—I!” cried Silvia, putting out her hand as if she would ward off the accusation. “ No, no, you will forgive her, you will be happy together again. She is only a giddy child, nobody taught her ” “Except yourself!” thundered Max. “ You can make her w’hat you like,” not heeding the interruption, “ as you have done.” “Oh! it was my fault. I should have prevented it. What is a companion good for but to prevent such things?" “I am glad that you see | r our error,” said Max; “ but it’s rather late in the day as far as Luna and I are concerned. How could I love a woman who regards truth merelj’ as a plaything? I assure you that if I would it is not in my power to do so.” Whe end of it was that Luna lost her lover and Silvia her situation. “ Wanted—an amanuensis,” read Silvia in the morning paper, one day. “ I mean to apply.” And she may have felt a little fsorry at her headlong action when she encountered Prof. Shale. ‘ “So you want a situation as amanuensis?” asked Max, with a grim smile. “ Well, perhaps I ought to employ you since you lost your last my means.” “ I did not guess it was you,” explained Silvia, with a blush. “ I will withdraw my application if—if ” remembering the twins. “ That would be quite unnecessary. I am acquainted with your skill in this business. Consideryourself engaged.” So she sat down and wrote hour after hour, day in and day out, for three months; , and then—- “ I’m ahnost’sorry that we have gotten through this pile of work,” confessed Max. “I believe that 1 said some bitter awhile ago; but let bygones be bygones. lam going away." ‘•Yes,” said Silvia, absently. “Andi must be looking about for another situation.” “ You would prefer a permanent one?”

“ Oh! yes, certainly.” “ And you’ll not be surprised if I offer it to you?” “You!” “ Yes. I remember telling you once that you had robbed me of home and fireside ; but even a learned, professor may be mistaken, I find. At least, let me assure you now thet you can make amends, if you will; that I love the woman who robbed me of my blind faith in an iynitt fatuue. Hushl Notaword! I will not have an answer to-day. lam going away, as I said, and you shall write me one of your incomparable letters—either for good or for ill.” And he bent and kissed a tress of her hair and was gone. Somewhat later the evening papers corruscated with an account of the wedding festivities of Miss Luna Lutestring and Mr. Bullion Mushroom. Max smiled as he put the paper down and reread a letter the postman had just brought him. “ The twins, bless them!” he thought. “My home shall be their home. I’m under great obligations to those dear children. It was their necessities that saved me from marrying a woman who held the truth as of no account.” — N. F. Independent.