"I suppose _she_ has teeth to cut, too," he said, "but you see she doesn't cry." "She cried loud enough while I was dressing her," retorted Barbara. "Put them on the floor side by side," ordered the Squire. The two infants were set down at his command. They were both at the crawling stage of existence, that early dawn in which humanity goes upon all fours. They seemed about the same size and age, as nearly as might be guessed. They had eyes and hair of the same colour, and had that resemblance common to pretty children. The heiress had a sicklier air than the waif, and was less beautiful in colouring. "They would pass for twin sisters," said Bosworth; "come, now, Mistress Bridget, do you think you would know them apart?" Bridget resented the suggestion as an insult to her affection and her intellect. "I should know my own little darling anywheres," she said; "and this strange child ain't half so pretty." "There's a mark she'll carry for life, anyhow," said Barbara Layburne, taking up the stranger, and baring the baby's right arm just where it joined the shoulder. "A burn or a scald, you see, Squire. I can't say which it is, but I don't think she'll outlive the scar." Bosworth glanced at it indifferently. "A deep brand," he said, and that was all. He was watching his own child, who was staring at the intruder with looks of keenest interest. She had left off crying, and was crawling assiduously towards the baby-waif, whom Barbara Layburne had set down upon the floor a little way off. The two infants crawled to each other like two puppies, and climbed and tumbled over each other just as young animals might have done, obeying instinct rather than reason. Presently the little lady uplifted her voice and crowed aloud, and then began to talk after her fashion, which was backward, as of a child brought up amidst gloom and silence. "Gar, gar, gar!" she reiterated, in a gurgling monotone. The other baby looked about her, and murmured piteously, "Dada, dada!" and seeing not him whom she sought, she began to cry. "Another fountain!" exclaimed the Squire, turning upon his heel. He stopped on the threshold to look back at nurse and children. "You have had your whim, Mistress Bridget," he said, shaking his forefinger at her; "look you that no harm comes of it;" and with that he stalked away, and went back to his den, without so much as a word to Barbara Layburne, who looked after him with strangely wistful eyes. Then, when the sound of his firm tread had died into silence, she too left the nurse and the babies, and stalked away to her own den. "A pretty pair," muttered Bridget, as she squatted down upon the ground to play with her charges; but whether she meant the two babies, or the Squire and his housekeeper, remains an open question. * * * * *