Miss Ruby, as I say, joined in the duet, but not, her observant twin thought, with her customary heartiness. Neither did she show her usual keen enjoyment of the eggs (scrambled this time, with crisp curls of bacon surrounding them) and the lion's potatoes. She was absent-minded and took little notice even of the Sally Lunns. All this might have passed as the result of fatigue, or an exceptionally busy day; but when, on finishing her creamcake, Miss Ruby refused, positively refused, her half of the odd one, Miss Pearl spoke with conviction. "Sister," she said, "you have something on your mind; do not deny it!" "Sister," replied Miss Ruby, "I _have_. Do not press me! I cannot eat another morsel." A troubled silence ensued. The table was cleared, the dishes washed and put away, but not to the customary accompaniment of cheerful babble. Miss Ruby sighed deeply over her "wiper," one of a set presented by Mr. Mallow as a birthday gift. Miss Pearl, the elder by half an hour in this world, and with all her maternal instinct centred in her sister, yearned to comfort her; but the bond of discretion and custom kept her silent. Anything that Sister felt at liberty to communicate, she would; far be it from Miss Pearl to intrude upon the sanctity of Office! Miss Ruby was the first to break the silence. "Let's we come out on the stoop!" she said. (The Misses Caddie never forgot that their father, the late lamented Cassius M. Caddie, had been a New York Merchant. They were only ten years old when he died, and their mother brought them back to her native Cyrus, but they said "stoop" for "porch" and "aquascutum" for "waterproof," as long as they lived.) The sisters went out on the porch--I beg their pardon! the stoop!--and sat down on a bench at the side. It was a lovely evening; the air was full of peace and silence, broken now and then by a low call from some nesting bird. Miss Ruby sighed again. "Sister," Miss Pearl spoke timidly; "could you feel to free your mind? You know that anything you might say would be sacred----" "I know it well!" Miss Ruby touched her twin's shoulder lightly; it was in the nature of a caress; they had not been brought up to kiss. "I will own this much to you, Sister, that never, in the course of my professional career, have I been so tempted to speak as I am this night." She paused; Miss Pearl made a little sound expressive of sympathy and concern. "It is not only," Miss Ruby went on, "the extra-ordinary nature of the message itself, though--well, Sister, you really _never did_!--but it is the feeling--" Miss Ruby glanced around her in the dusk and lowered her voice--"the feeling that the sanctity of the Office has been _already violated_." "Sister Ruby! how _could_----"