John,
after desperate attempts, which always failed in spite of the
headaches they gave him, postponed the idea of distinguishing one
from the other, until they should be old enough to develop some
dissimilarity of speech, or gait, or habit. All trouble might have
been avoided, had Phebe consented to the least variation in their
dresses; but herein she was mildly immovable.
"Not yet," was her set reply to her husband; and one day, when he
manifested a little annoyance at her persistence, she turned to
him, holding a child on each knee, and said with a gravity which
silenced him thenceforth: "John, can you not see that our burden
has passed into them? Is there no meaning in this--that two
children who are one in body and face and nature, should be given
to us at our time of life, after such long disappointment and
trouble? Our lives were held apart; theirs were united before they
were born, and I dare not turn them in different directions.
Perhaps I do not know all that the Lord intended to say to us,
in sending them; but His hand is here!"
"I was only thinking of their good," John meekly answered.
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