nothing short of angelic when asleep.

[Illustration: "I NEVER THOUGHT OF THEM AS MY CHILDREN BEFORE"]

David came out a little later, his eyes reddened with tears, his hair
rumpled, his face flushed. He seemed like a man awed by an entirely
new experience. He could not speak, he could only stammer brokenly:--

"As God is my witness, Letty, there's been something wrong with me up
to this moment. I never thought of them as my children before, and I
can't believe that such as they can belong to me. They were never
wanted, and I've never had any interest in them. I owe them to you,
Letty; you've made them what they are; you, and no one else."

"If there hadn't been something there to build on, my love and care
wouldn't have counted for much. They're just like dear mother's people
for good looks and brains and pretty manners: they're pure Shirley all
the way through, the twinnies are."

"It's lucky for me that they are!" said David humbly. "You see,
Letty, I married Eva to keep my promise. If I was old enough to make
it, I was old enough to keep it, so I thought. She never loved me, and
when she found out that I didn't love her any longer she turned
against me. Our life together was awful, from beginning to end, but
she's in her grave, and nobody'll ever hear my side, now that she
can't tell hers. When I looked at those two babies the day I left you,
I thought of them only as retribution; and the vision of them--ugly,
wrinkled, writhing little creatures--has been in my mind ever since."

"They were compensation, not retribution, David. I ought to have told