One went up readily to Aurelia and allowed herself to be kissed, and lifted to a chair; the other clung to Dame Wheatfield, in spite of coaxing entreaties. “Speak pretty, my dear; speak to the pretty lady. Don’t ye see how good your sister is? It won’t do, miss,” to Aurelia; “she’s daunted, is my pretty lamb. If I might just give her her breakwist--for it is the last time I shall do it--then she might get used to you before my good man comes for me.” Aurelia was only too glad to instal Dame Wheatfield in a chair with her charge in her lap. The other child was feeding herself very tidily and independently, and Aurelia asked her if she were the eldest. “Yes,” she said. “And what shall I call you, my dear?” “I’m Missy.” “No, Missy, me--me eldest,” cried the other. “Bless the poor children!” exclaimed Mrs. Wheatfield, laughing, “they be both of ‘em eldest, as one may say.” “They are twins, then?” said Aurelia. “More than that--all three of them came together! I’ve heard tell of such a thing once or twice, but never of all living and thriving. Folk said it was a judgment on my Lady that she spoke sharp and hard to a poor beggar woman with a child on each arm. It was not a week out before my Lady herself was down, quite unexpected, as I may say, for she was staying here for a week, with a lot of company, when these three was born. They do say she was nigh beside herself that the like of that should have happened to her. Mr. Wayland, he was not so ill pleased, but the poor little things had to be got out of the house any way, for she could not abear to hear of them. Mrs. Rolfe, as was an old servant of the family, took that one, and I was right glad to have you, my pretty one, for I had just lost my babe at a fortnight old, and the third was sent to Goody Bowles, for want of a better. They says as how my Lady means to bring them out one by one, and to make as this here is bigger, and the other up stairs is lesser, and never let on that they are all of an age.” The good gossip must have presumed greatly on the children’s want of comprehension if she did not suppose that they understood her at least as well as the young lady to whom her dialect was strange. “And has she not seen them?”