“Edna Browning” she had named the expected stranger, and had held all sorts of consultations with Mrs. Roy concerning the christening robes and the christening dinner, and had talked quite confidently of what her daughter would and would not do. How, then, was she amazed and confounded when the result proved to be _twins_, and boys at that! Two great, red-faced, sturdy boys, at whom she looked askance, and from whom she shrunk at first as from something appalling, and of which she was ashamed. Edna Browning was a Betsy Trotwood affair now, and they named the babies John and Roy, but the father always called them Jack and Gill. And they were spending their first Christmas at Leighton; and Mr. and Mrs. Freeman Burton were there also, the latter still in black for her darling Georgie, whom she talked about a great deal, wishing so much that she could be with them as she used to be. “Not that I want you away, my dear,” she would add, laying her hand on Edna’s shoulder, “or wish that things with you and Roy were otherwise, only I miss poor Georgie so much, but Maude is a great comfort to me.” And this is true, for to some degree Maude has taken Georgie’s place in her aunt’s affections. She spends a good deal of time at Oakwood with her boys, to whom Mr. Burton calls himself grandpa, while his wife is the grandma; and it is said that in his private drawer there is a will giving all his worldly possessions to his beloved niece, Mrs. John Heyford, and her heirs forever; so Jack is doing well in a worldly point of view, and is talking of building a handsome country seat, where Maude can keep her ponies, and her children, and be what she desires to be, a farmer’s wife in comfortable circumstances. Uncle Phil is also at Leighton keeping the Christmas holidays, and playing with the twins, and rallying Edna on Maude’s surprising success. But Aunt Jerry is not there. “Got the rheumatism in her hip, and is crosser than four bears,” Uncle Phil said, and then Edna knew that he had been to Allen’s Hill, and looked at him so inquiringly, that he replied, “No use, no use,—and I may as well tell you that I’ve made a prodigious fool of myself, and been after that snap-dragon again. She looked so trim and neat when you were married, that my heart kept thumpin’ under my jacket; and I was so lonesome with you and Maude both gone for good, that I—yes—well—I—yes, yes—asked her again, and said I was ’Piscopal now, and told her I’d build a Gothic cottage, and we might take comfort yet, for it was lonesome and awful cold winter nights, and she called me an old fool, and told me to let her alone, and I did, but kept thinkin’, and hankerin’, and rememberin’ how slim and straight she looked, and I’ve begun the Gothic house, you know, and it will be finished in the spring, and—and—yes, yes—the upshot is, I went out there two weeks ago and found her on crutches, and tried her again with the ’Piscopal and the Gothic, but no go.