corner. He seldom spoke, and seldomer | looked at each other, and how glad were Sorely I wept over the change that had passed upon the good man. He must have received some terrible shock! It was just as if his mother, John said, had got hold of him, and put a knife in his heart! It was well, however, that he was not wandering about the heath, exposed to the elements! and there was yet time for many a good thing to come. Where one must wait, one can wait. This John had to learn, for, say what he would, the idea of marrying while my uncle was in such a plight, was to me unendurable. CHAPTER XXXII. TWICE TWO IS ONE. THE spring came, but brought little change in the condition of my uncle. In the month of May Dr. Southwell advised our taking him abroad. When we mentioned it to him, he passed his hand wearily over his forehead as if he felt something wrong there, and made no reply. We went on with our preparations, and when the day arrived he made no objection to going. We were an odd party: John and I, bachelor and spinster; my uncle, a silent, moody man, who did whatever we asked him; and the still, open-eyed Martha Moon, who, I sometimes think, understood more about it all than any of us. I could talk a little French, and John a good deal of German; and when we got to Paris, we found my uncle considerably at home there. When he cared to speak, he spoke like a native, and was never at a loss for word or phrase. It was he, indeed, who took us to a quiet little hotel he knew; and when we were comfortably settled in it, he began to take the lead in all our plans. By degrees he assumed the care and guidance of the whole party; and so well did he carry out what he had silently, perhaps almost unconsciously undertaken, that we conceived the greatest hopes of the result to himself. A mind might lie quiescent so long as it was ministered to, and hedged from cares and duties, and wake up when something was required of it. No one would have thought anything amiss with my uncle, that heard him giving his orders for the day, or acting cicerone to the little company- there for his sake, though he did not know it. How often John and I 3797 LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXIII. One day he proposed to hire a carriage and a good pair of horses, and drive to Versailles to see the palace. We agreed, and all went well. I had not, in my wildest dreams, imagined a place so grand and beautiful. We wandered about it for hours, and were just tired enough to begin thinking with pleasure of the start homeward, when we found ourselves in a very long, straight corridor. I was walking alone, a little ahead of the rest; my uncle was coming along next, but a good way behind me; a few paces behind my uncle, came John with Martha, to whom he was more scrupulously attentive than to myself. In front of me was a door, dividing the corridor in two, apparently filled with plain plate-glass, to break the draught without obscuring the effect of the great length of the corridor, which stretched away as far on the other side as we had come on this. I paused and stood aside, leaning against the wall to wait for my uncle, and gazing listlessly out of a window opposite me. But as my uncle came nearer to open the door for us, I happened to cast my eyes again upon it, and saw my uncle coming in the opposite direction, when I concluded of course that I had made a mistake about the door, taking it for a clear plate of glass instead of a mirror, reflecting the corridor behind me. I looked back at my uncle with a little anxiety. My reader may remember that, when he came to fetch me from Rising he started, encountering a mirror at unawares, and nearly fell; from this occurrence and from the absence of mirrors about the house, I had imagined in his life some painful story connected with a mirror. Once again I saw him start, and then stand like stone. Almost immediately a marvellous light overspread his countenance, and with a cry he bounded forward. I looked again at the mirror, and there I saw the self-same light-irradiated countenance coming straight, as was natural, to meet that of which it was the reflection. Then all at once the solid foundations of fact melted into vaporous dream, for I saw the two figures come together, the one in the mirror, the other in the world, and just as I thought my uncle of the world would shatter the mirror, I saw the two fall into each other's arms. I heard also two voices weeping and sobbing, as the substance and the shadow embraced. They paused in their weeping, held each other at arm's length, and gazed as in mute appeal for yet better assurance; then smiled like two suns from opposing rain clouds, fell again each on the other's neck, and wept anew. Neither had killed the other. Neither had lost the other. The world had been a graveyard, and was a paradise! Two men had for a moment been de- | the relation in which I had all my life ceived like myself; neither glass nor mir- stood to my Uncle Edward, they would ror was there only the frame from which have been but as one man. I hardly know a swing-door had been removed for repair. that I felt any richer at first for having The two walked right into the arms each two of them; it was long before I should of the other, whom he had at first taken have felt much poorer for the loss of for himself. Uncle Edmund. Uncle Edward was to me the substance of which Uncle Edmund was but the shadow. But at length I too learned to love him dearly by beholding how dearly my own uncle loved him. I loved the one because he was what he was, the other because he was not that one. Love commonly differentiates that it may unite; in the case of my uncles it seemed only to divide that it might unite. I am hardly intelligible to myself, and am getting into a bog of ill-defined metaphysics, out of which it is time I scrambled. What I would say is this: that what made the world not care there should be two of them, made the earth a heaven to those two. By their not being one, they were able to love, and so were one. Like twin planets they revolved around each other, and in a common orbit around God their sun. It was a beautiful thing to see how Uncle Edmund revived and expanded, until he became in the light of his brother's presence, as much himself as he had ever been. He had suffered more than my own uncle, and had not had an orphan child to love and be loved by. We stood aside in reverence. Martha Moon's eyes glowed, but she manifested no surprise. John and I gazed in utter bewilderment. The two embraced each other, kissed and hugged and patted each other, wept and murmured and laughed, then all at once, with one great sigh between them, grew aware of witnesses. Had they not been too happy to blush, they could not have blushed, so red were they with the fire of heaven's own delight. Utterly unembarrassed they turned towards us - wherewith came a fresh astonishment, an old joy out of the treasure of the divine householder: the uncle of the mirror came straight to me, cried, "Ah, little one!" took me in his arms, and embraced me with all the old tenderness, and a joy such as I had never before beheld upon human countenance. Then I knew that my own old uncle was all right, the same as ever I had known him since I used to go to sleep in his arms. What a drive home that was! Paris, anywhere seemed home now! I had John and my uncles; John had me and my uncle; my uncles had each other; and 1 suspect, if we could have looked into Martha, we should have seen that she, through her lovely unselfishness, possessed us all more than any one of us another. Oh, the outbursts of gladness on the way!-the talks! - the silences! The past fell off like an ugly veil from the true face of things; the present was sunshine; the future a rosy cloud. When we reached our hotel, it was dinner time, and John ordered a bottle of champagne. He and I were hungry as two happy children, but the uncles ate little, and scarcely drank. They were too happy in each other to be aware of any animal need. A strange solemnity crowned and dominated their gladness. Each was to the other a Lazarus given back from the grave. But to understand the depth of their rapture, you must know their story. That of Martha and Mary could not have equalled it but for the presence of the master, for neither of those had done the other wrong. They coked to me like men walking in a lumi When we drew round the fire, for the evenings were chilly, they laid their whole history open to us. What a story it was! and what a telling of it! My own uncle, Edward, was the principal narrator, but he was occasionally helped out by my newer uncle, Edmund. I had the narrative in writing at home, and when we returned I read it not with the same absorption as if it had come first, but with as much interest, and certainly with the more thorough comprehension that I had listened to it before. That same written story I will presently give, with such elucidation as I may be able to add from the narrative of my Uncle Edward, and the supplement of my Uncle Edmund. As the story proceeded, overcome with the horror of the revelation I foresaw, I forgot myself and cried out, "And that woman is John's mother!" "Whose mother?" asked Uncle Edmund, with scornful curiosity. John Day's," I answered. "Are you sure of it?" he asked again. "Ed," said Edmund to Edward, "let us 66 My mother says in 1820." "You have not seen the entry?" "No. One does not naturally doubt such statements." "Assuredly not He paused. until How Uncle Edmund had regained his wits! And how young the brothers looked! "You mean," said John, "until he has known my mother!" Then there was silence. Presently a few more questions were asked, and it came out that the possible reason why John had learned nothing of consequence to him when he went to London, was, that he had gone to Lady Cairnedge's lawyer. He had never had anything to do with business before, and had learned no caution except with his mother. Of a peculiarly open and trusting, because trustworthy nature, all the power of distrust that lay in him had been spent on his mother. Now for the story of my twin uncles, mainly as written by my uncle Edward. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE STORY OF MY TWIN UNCLES. Ready, Ed," said Edward to Edmund; and therewith they began comparing memories and recollections, to find, however, that they had by no means data enough. "It would be just like one of her devil-like. Very few of our friends, none of tricks," remarked Uncle Edmund. "I beg your pardon, John," said Uncle Edward, as if it were he that had used the phrase. Uncle Edmund said nothing, only "When will you start, Ed?" "My brother and I were marvellously them with certainty, could name either of us apart - or even together. It might be said with truth, that only two persons knew absolutely which either of us was, and those two were ourselves. Each of us even has occasionally made the blunder of calling the other by the name that was not his but that of the one who spoke. Our indistinguishableness was the source of ever recurring mistakes, of constant amusement, of frequent bewilderment, and sometimes of annoyance in the family. I once heard my father say to a friend, that "This business of John's must come God had never made two things altogether first, Ed!" "It shall, Ed." alike, except his twins. We two enjoyed the fun of it so much, that we did our best to increase the confusions resulting from our resemblance. We did not lie, but we dodged and pretended, questioned and looked mysterious, till I verily believe the person concerned, having in himself so vague an idea of our individuality, not unfrequently forgot which he had blamed, or which he had wanted, and became hopelessly muddled. "A man might well have started the question what good could lie in the exist ence of a duality in which the appearance was, if not exactly, yet so nearly identical, that no one but my brother or myself could have pointed out definite differences; but if no one else saw the good of a duality in which each was the other's double, the doubt was confined to outsiders; my brother and I raised no such question, the fact being to us a never ceasing cause of delight. Each seemed to the other expressly created so, in order that he might love him as a specia!, individual property of his own. It was as if the image of Narcissus had risen bodily out of the watery mirror. It was as if we had been made two, that each might love himself, and yet not be selfish. "We were almost always together, but sometimes we got into individual scrapes, when-which will appear to some incredible we always accepted punishment without question or distinction as to which was the culprit. If the wrong one was accused he never thought of denial; it was all one which was the culprit, and which should be the sufferer. Nor did this indistinction work badly; that the other was just as likely as not to suffer for the wrong done, wrought as a deterrent. It may have had its origin in the instinc tive perception of the impossibility of proof; the common world is incapable of believing in the truthfulness of a boy, and denial would have been no shield from the vengeance of one who thought he had captured the culprit; it was so easy, he would have said, to lay it on his brother! Besides, had we been capable of throwing any blame the one on the other, loving that other as each did, I do not see but we must have been capable of lying also. The delight of existence lay embodied and objective to each in the existence of the other. "At school we learned the same things, and it was not until long after, that any differences in taste began to develop themselves. "Our brother, elder by five years, who would succeed to the property, had the education my father thought would best fit him for the management of land. We twins were trained for the professions of lawyer and doctor. I was to be the doctor. "We went to college together, and shared the same rooms. Having finished our separate courses, my father sent us to a German university; he would not have us insular ! "We did not work hard, nor was hard work required of us. We went out a good deal in the evenings ; the students at home in the town were mostly hospitable. It may be we owed a little popularity to our singular resemblance, which we found was regarded as a serious disadvantage. The reason of this we never could see, flattering ourselves indeed that it gave us double the base and double the strength. "We had our friends all in common. Every friend to one of us was a friend to both. If one met man or woman he was pleased with, he never rested until the other knew, that he might be pleased with him or her. Our delight in our friends must have been greater than that of other men, because of the constant sharing. "Our all but identity of form, our inseparability and unanimity were often, although we did not know it, a subject of talk in the social gatherings of the place. It was more than once or twice openly mooted - what, in the course of life, was likeliest to strain the bond that united us. Not a few agreed that a terrible catastrophe might almost be expected from what they considered such an unnatural relation. "You will naturally foresee from what the first difference would arise that it would be rooted in our very likeness! You will see also why it was so difficult, indeed impossible for me not to have a secret from my little one. 66 Among the persons we met in the home circles of our fellow-students, appeared by and by an English lady-a young widow, they said, though there was little in her dress or her carriage to suggest widowhood. We met her again and again. Each thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but neither was greatly interested in her at first. Nor do I believe either would, from himself, ever have been. Our likings and dislikings always hitherto had gone together, and, left to themselves, would have done so always, I believe; whereby we should also have found when necessary a common strength of abnegation. In the present case they were not left to themselves; the lady gave the initiative, and the dividing regard was born in the one before it was born in the other. "Within the last few years I have had a visit from an old companion of the period. I dare say you will remember the German gentleman who amused you with the funny way in which he pronounced certain words one of the truest-hearted and truesttongued men I have ever met; he gave me much unexpected insight into the evil affair. He had learned certain things from his sister, which, old as the story by that time was, formed the principal reason of his coming to England to find me. "One evening, when a number of the ladies we were in the habit of meeting, happened to be together without any gentleman present, the talk turned, half in a philosophical, half in a gossipy spirit, upon the consequences that might follow, should two men, bound in such strange fashion as my brother and I, fall in love with the same woman a thing not merely possible, but to be expected. The talk, my friend said, was full of a certain speculative sort of metaphysics which, in the present state of human development, is far from healthy, both because of our incompleteness, and because we are too near to what we seem to know, to judge it aright. Just one lady was present- a lady by us more admired and trusted than any of the rest who declared her conviction that love to no woman would ever separate us, provided the one fell in love first, and the other knew the fact before he saw the lady. For, she said, no jealousy would then be roused; and the relation of the brother to his brother and sister would be so close as to satisfy his heart. In a few days probably he too would fall in love, and his lady in like manner be received by his brother, to form a square impreg. nable to attack. The theory was a good one, and worthy of realization. But, alas, the prince of the power of the air was already present in force, hid in the person of the English widow. Young in years, but old in pride and self-confidence, she smiled at the notion of our advocate. She said that the idea of any friendship between men being of such an exalted sort was nonsense; that she knew more about men than some present could be expected to know, and their friendship was but a matter of custom and use; the moment an atom of self came into play, it would burst; it was but a bubble-company. As for love proper she meant the love between man and woman - its law was the opposite to that of friendship; its birth and continuance depend on the parties not being used to each other! "Upon this followed much confused talk, during which the English lady declared nothing easier than to prove friendship, or the love of brothers, the sort of thing she had said. As for the law of love proper, she said, the proof of that lay in the power, if not in the possession of every one present. "Most of the company believed the young widow but talking to show off her experience; not a few felt that they desired no nearer acquaintance with one whose words, whatever might be her thoughts, degraded humanity. The circle broken into two segments, one that liked the English lady, and one that did not. was "From that moment, the English widow set before her the devil-victory of alienating two hearts that loved each otherand she gained it for a time, though Death has proved stronger than the Devil. People said we could not be parted; she would part us! She began with my brother. To tell how I know that she began with him, I should have to tell how she began with me, and that I cannot do; for, little one, I dare not let the tale of the treacheries of a bad woman toward an unsuspecting youth, enter your ears. Suffice it to say such a woman has studied those parts of a man's nature into which, being less divine, the devil in her can easier find a way. There, she knows him better than he knows himself; and she makes use of her knowledge of him, not to elevate, but to degrade him. She fills him with herself, and her animal influences. She gets into his self-consciousness beside himself, by means of his self-love. Through the funnel of his self-greed, she pours in flattery, hints admiration of himself, by depreciation of others. Not such a woman only, but al most any silly woman, may speedily make the most ordinary, and hitherto modest youth, imagine himself the peak of creation, the triumph of the Deity. No man alive is beyond the danger of imagining himself exceptional among men; if such as think so were what they think, truly the world were ill-worth God's making! He is the wisest who has learned to 'be naught a while.' This man, silly soul, becomes so full of his tempter, and of himself in and through her, that he loses interest in all else, cares for nobody but her, prizes nothing but her regard, looks forward to nothing but again her presence; and further favors. God is nowhere; fellow-man in the way like a buzzing flyelse no more to be regarded than a speck of dust that is not upon his person or his garment. And this terrible disintegration of life rises out of the most wonderful, |