salute from the boy, a bob, conscientiously intended for a curtsey, from
the girl, advance a step or two into the room.

"Grandmamma," say the two high-pitched baby voices, speaking so exactly
together that they sound but as one. "Grandmamma, it's '_us_.'"

Still no response. Grandmamma is not indifferent--far from it--but just
at this moment her netting is at a critical stage impossible to
disregard; she _thinks_ to herself "wait a moment, my dears," and is
quite under the impression that she has said it aloud; this is a
mistake, but all the same "my dears" do wait a moment--several moments
indeed, hand-in-hand, uncomplainingly, without indeed the very faintest
notion in their faithful little hearts that there is anything to
complain of--there are _some_ lessons to be learnt from children long
ago, I think,--while Grandmamma tries to secure her knots.

Look at them while they stand there; it is always a good plan to save
time, and we have a minute or two to spare. They are so alike in size
and colour and feature that if it had not been that one was a boy and
the other a girl, there would have been no telling them apart. Before
Duke was put into the first stage of boy-attire--what that exactly was
in those days I confess I am not sure--they never _had_ been told apart
was the fact of the matter, till one day the brilliant idea struck
Grandmamma of decorating little Pamela with a coral necklace. She little
knew what she was about; both babies burst into howling distress, and
were not to be quieted even when the unlucky beads were taken away; no,
indeed, they only cried the more. Grandmamma and Nurse were at their
wits' end, and Grandpapa's superior intelligence had at last to be
appealed to. And not in vain.