The family sat in the breakfast-room waiting for the twins to come down.
The widow was quiet, the daughter was alive with happy excitement. She said:
"Ah, they're a boon, ma, just a boon! don't you think so?"
"Laws, I hope so, I don't know."
"Why, ma, yes you do. They're so fine and handsome, and high-bred and polite, so every way superior to our gawks here in this village; why, they'll make life different from what it was--so humdrum and commonplace, you know--oh, you may be sure they're full of accomplishments, and knowledge of the world, and all that, that will be an immense advantage to society here. Don't you think so, ma?"
"Mercy on me, how should I know, and I've hardly set eyes on them yet."
After a pause she added, "They made considerable noise after they went up."
"Noise? Why, ma, they were singing! And it was beautiful, too."
"Oh, it was well enough, but too mixed-up, seemed to me."
"Now, ma, honor bright, did you ever hear 'Greenland's Icy Mountains' sung sweeter--now did you?"
"If it had been sung by itself, it would have been uncommon sweet, I don't deny it; but what they wanted to mix it up with 'Old Bob Ridley' for, I can't make out. Why, they don't go together, at all. They are not of the same nature. 'Bob Ridley' is a common rackety slam-bang secular song, one of the rippingest and rantingest and noisiest there is.
I am no judge of music, and I don't claim it, but in my opinion nobody can make those two songs go together right."
"Why, ma, I thought--"
"It don't make any difference what you thought, it can't be done. They tried it, and to my mind it was a failure. I never heard such a crazy uproar; seemed to me, sometimes, the roof would come off; and as for the cats--well, I've lived a many a year, and seen cats aggravated in more ways than one, but I've never seen cats take on the way they took on last night."
"Well, I don't think that that goes for anything, ma, because it is the nature of cats that any sound that is unusual--"
"Unusual! You may well call it so. Now if they are going to sing duets every night, I do hope they will both sing the same tune at the same time, for in my opinion a duet that is made up of two different tunes is a mistake; especially when the tunes ain't any kin to one another, that way."
"But, ma, I think it must be a foreign custom; and it must be right too; and the best way, because they have had every opportunity to know what is right, and it don't stand to reason that with their education they would do anything but what the highest musical authorities have sanctioned.
You can't help but admit that, ma."
The argument was formidably strong; the old lady could not find any way around it; so, after thinking it over awhile she gave in with a sigh of discontent, and admitted that the daughter's position was probably correct. Being vanquished, she had no mind to continue the topic at that disadvantage, and was about to seek a change when a change came of itself. A footstep was heard on the stairs, and she said:
"There-he's coming!"
"They, ma--you ought to say they--it's nearer right."
The new lodger, rather shoutingly dressed but looking superbly handsome, stepped with courtly carnage into the trim little breakfast-room and put out all his cordial arms at once, like one of those pocket-knives with a multiplicity of blades, and shook hands with the whole family simultaneously. He was so easy and pleasant and hearty that all embarrassment presently thawed away and disappeared, and a cheery feeling of friendliness and comradeship took its place. He--or preferably they --were asked to occupy the seat of honor at the foot of the table. They consented with thanks, and carved the beefsteak with one set of their hands while they distributed it at the same time with the other set.
"Will you have coffee, gentlemen, or tea?"
"Coffee for Luigi, if you please, madam, tea for me."
"Cream and sugar?"
"For me, yes, madam; Luigi takes his coffee, black. Our natures differ a good deal from each other, and our tastes also."
The first time the negro girl Nancy appeared in the door and saw the two heads turned in opposite directions and both talking at once, then saw the commingling arms feed potatoes into one mouth and coffee into the other at the same time, she had to pause and pull herself out of a faintness that came over her; but after that she held her grip and was able to wait on the table with fair courage.
Conversation fell naturally into the customary grooves. It was a little jerky, at first, because none of the family could get smoothly through a sentence without a wabble in it here and a break there, caused by some new surprise in the way of attitude or gesture on the part of the twins.
The weather suffered the most. The weather was all finished up and disposed of, as a subject, before the simple Missourians had gotten sufficiently wonted to the spectacle of one body feeding two heads to feel composed and reconciled in the presence of so bizarre a miracle.
And even after everybody's mind became tranquilized there was still one slight distraction left: the hand that picked up a biscuit carried it to the wrong head, as often as any other way, and the wrong mouth devoured it. This was a puzzling thing, and marred the talk a little. It bothered the widow to such a degree that she presently dropped out of the conversation without knowing it, and fell to watching and guessing and talking to herself:
"Now that hand is going to take that coffee to no, it's gone to the other mouth; I can't understand it; and how, here is the dark-complected hand with a potato in its fork, I'll see what goes with it--there, the light-complected head's got it, as sure as I live!"
Finally Rowena said:
"Ma, what is the matter with you? Are you dreaming about something?"
The old lady came to herself and blushed; then she explained with the first random thing that came into her mind: "I saw Mr. Angelo take up Mr. Luigi's coffee, and I thought maybe he--sha'n't I give you a cup, Mr. Angelo?"