On their birthday morning--the twins were born on Christmas--Fom waked very early, alarmed to find Bep's arm about her. She never remembered in the morning that at night her last hazy thought had been to reach for it, pull down the sleeve of its nightgown, and cuddle close to her twin. She threw it from her now with unusual violence, and, sitting up in bed, slipped off her gown that she might closely examine her right side--the side that had been nearest Bep. The blonde twin woke while this process was going on, and its dread significance shook the haze of slumber from her eyes. She, too, slipped her gown from her shoulders and, shivering with the cold, passed an apprehensive hand along her left ribs. "Do you?" she whispered. "N-no. I don't think so. I--I dreamed that it was there, though. Do you?" An assenting shudder shook Bep's body. "Where--oh, where? I don't believe it!" cried Fom. "You're just a 'fraid-cat trying to frighten me." Bep pointed to her side. There it was unmistakably--a round black-and-blue mark. A wail escaped Florence. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she cried, "what in the world shall we do?" Bep did not answer. She sat stupefied, staring at the evidence of calamity. "If it's commenced on you, it's bound to commence on me before long. I wonder--how fast it grows?" Bep shook her head. "It wasn't there when I went to sleep." "If it grows on you toward me, and on me toward you that quick, why, in a week--we'll be--stuck fast--won't we?" Bep nodded miserably. "Some morning," mourned Fom, wriggling unhappily, "we'll wake and it'll be all done. You'll just have to study hard, Bessie Madigan, and be in my class in school; I won't go back into the mixed primary--I just won't! Oh, Bep, why will you put your arm around me at night?" "I don't. I always go to sleep with my back to you. You know I do. And in the morning, the first thing I know you're flinging my arm off. I believe you pull my arm over you yourself. I believe you want to get stuck together and be Chemise Twins!" Bep scolded tearfully, with her usual ill luck with unfamiliar words. There was a sorrow-smitten pause. "I say, Beppy," the termination was a sign of sudden good humor in Fom, "didn't you tumble down yesterday when you and Bombey Forrest were driving the Grayson kids round the block in your relay race?" The light of hope leaped up in Bessie's eyes. "Could it be that?" "Of course it could; it is, you silly!" "I'm not a silly. You were scared yourself," retorted the blonde twin, relieved but pugnacious. "Pooh! I only pretended, to frighten you," jeered Fom. "Not much you didn't. I ain't anybody's dope." "Anybody's what?" "Anybody's dope," answered Bep, uncertainly; she knew how little words were to be trusted. "What's 'dope'?" demanded Florence. "Why--what Kate said yesterday." An enjoying giggle came from Sissy's bed. She had waked. "_Dupe_, you goosy--_dupe_!" she chuckled. "Yah! Yah!" sneered Fom, happy in her twin's discomfiture.