"Our names--" began Ellen Louisa shrilly; then she was stopped by Louisa Ellen's hand on her mouth. "Don't make her mad over us," advised Louisa Ellen. "She might pen us up." "We will go to school," said Ellen Louisa. "Then we will go home to dinner. Pop wouldn't like it if we weren't in school." But Aunt Mena did not approve. "In a couple of days you shall go again in the school. But you are not going any more in the Spring Grove School. It is not any more your district." "N-not to Miss Miflin!" gasped Ellen Louisa. "No, you are no more in Miss Miflin's district." "B-but--" Ellen Louisa felt her braid of black hair sharply tweaked. Louisa Ellen was a shade thinner than Ellen Louisa and a trifle quicker witted. "You didn't have to tell Aunt Mena right out that we were going home," she said, when they had finished their breakfast. "Now come on." The coast was, at that moment, perfectly clear. Aunt Mena was in the cellar getting the cream ready to churn, and Aunt Mena's husband was in a distant field, ploughing. The twins seized caps and shawls and fled. Ellen Louisa made for the high road. "What have you for!" cried Louisa Ellen. "That way she will look for us. We go this way to the Spring Grove road. Come on." Ten minutes later, when Aunt Mena came to the door, they were not in sight. Aunt Mena was not much troubled. She did not know that Sarah had been allowed to stay in the farmhouse. "Pooh! they will go to Daniel, and he will fetch them home, or I will fetch them home. It is all one." And Aunt Mena went back to her work. The twins had a ride in a farmer's cart, which brought them to the foot of the lane. Realizing that they were too late for school, they decided to go home until the afternoon session. Then Sarah would write a note of explanation to Miss Miflin. To the twins Sarah's notes were as all-powerful as Aladdin's lamp. To Miss Miflin they were sources of both mirth and grief. She laughed because they were so irresistibly funny, and then she almost cried because they reminded her of plans and hopes once dear to her heart, which had been ended forever by misunderstanding and resentment. "Dear Teacher," Sarah wrote. "Please excuse the zwillings" (there were times in the stress of hasty composition when English words eluded Sarah's grasp as they eluded Jacob Kalb's) "for being late. They cannot come now so early like always, while they must help a little in the morning. Their father, SARAH WENNER." Sarah considered that the signature was a happy combination of the respect due to fathers and the sign of her stewardship of his affairs. Sometimes Miss Miflin started to go to see little Sarah, who had been the best and brightest pupil she had ever had, but she never got quite to the house. She blamed herself for William's going away, and she thought that they too might blame her. So she turned back.