Maida, they played quietly with whatever she chose to give them. It
was an hour, ordinarily, before they could be made to talk above a
whisper. If they saw Maida coming into the court, they would run to
her side, slipping a hot little hand into each of hers. Attended
always by this roly-poly bodyguard, Maida would limp from group to
group of the playing children. Nobody in Primrose Court could tell
the Clark twins apart. Maida soon learned the difference although
she could never explain it to anybody else. “It’s something you have
to feel,” she said.

Billy Potter enjoyed the twins as much as Maida did. “Good morning,
Dorothy-Mabel,” he always said when he met one of them; “is this you
or your sister?” And he always answered their whispered remarks with
whispers so much softer than theirs that he finally succeeded in
forcing them to raise their shy little voices.

The Doyles and the Dores lived in one house next to the Clarks,
Molly and Tim on the first floor, Dicky and Delia above. Maida
became very fond of the Doyle children. Like Betsy, they were too
young to go to school and she saw a good deal of them in the lonely
school hours. The puddle was an endless source of amusement to them.
As long as it remained, they entertained themselves playing along
its shores.

“There’s that choild in the water again,” Granny would cry from the
living-room.

Looking out, Maida would see Tim spread out on all fours. Like an
obstinate little pig, he would lie still until Molly picked him up.
She would take him home and in a few moments he would reappear in