MY MAFIA KING AND THE TWINS

"Oh, Kit, isn't it just fun!" cried Jane, her rosy, chubby face beaming. "How fast we are going!"

"Ho," exclaimed Christopher, "it's not so fast. Not so awfully fast, is it, grandfather? I'd like to go about sixty miles an hour. That would be going for you."

"Oh, Kit!" breathed Jane in mingled awe and admiration.

Jane and Christopher-or Kit as he was generally called to distinguish him from his father, whose name also was Christopher-were twins, and so far along the course of their short lives had shared everything, from peppermint drops to ideas. The stern fact that Christopher was a boy and Jane a girl was just beginning faintly to dawn upon them-a state demonstrated by Jane's unqualified admiration of everything her brother said and did, and by his occasional condescension of manner toward her.

Jane leaned back in her parlor car seat hugging her doll-a wonderful new one with flaxen hair turned up with a comb and dressed "like a lady"-quite content with the rate at which the train was speeding through the green fields and villages; while Christopher bobbed about from seat to seat, trying the view from each side of the train in turn and wishing he could look out on both sides at once.

There were very few passengers in the parlor car, for it was early in the season for summer visitors to go to the country. Besides the twins and their grandparents there were only three other passengers: two gentlemen who were very busy talking and paid no attention to any one else, and a sweet-faced lady with gray hair who sat at the other end of the car and who watched the children with great interest. She looked as if she would like to make friends with them.

After a while she took a candy box out of her satchel and catching the twins' eyes, beckoned to them, holding out the open box. Christopher was for bolting down the car aisle at once, but Jane caught him back and whispered something to her grandmother, who looked up from her book, exchanged smiles with the sweet-faced stranger, bowed and said "yes" to Jane.

"I thought you might like some chocolates," said the lady as the children approached. "Won't you sit down there opposite me?"

"Thank you," said Jane politely, and the twins tucked themselves side by side into the big chair. The lady's sweet, interested manner and the chocolates quickly put matters upon a friendly footing, and in two minutes the children were prattling away as if they had known Mrs. Hartwell-Jones (for that, she told them, was her name, watching out of the corner of her eye as she pronounced it to see if it sounded familiar to them) as if they had known her all their lives. Their own names, age and family history were soon told.

"Our mother and father have gone to Europe for four months," announced Christopher importantly. "Father had to go on business and mother wanted to go with him and so--"

"She did not want to go, Kit," corrected Jane. "The doctor thought she ought to."

"Well, she did want to go. How could she help wanting to go to Europe?" demanded Christopher triumphantly. "So she and father went, and we are to spend the whole summer on the farm."

"The whole summer," repeated Jane, happily. But she swallowed hard as she thought of her father and mother off in the middle of the ocean on a big ship.

"It's a real farm," went on Christopher, "with cows and chickens and pigs."

"And horses and dogs and cats," added Jane, the lump in her throat already gone.

"Oh, they don't count. You could have horses and dogs and cats without having a farm," said Christopher. "There are big fields where the men plough and cut hay, and there must be dozens of cows," he explained to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones.

"And where is this wonderful farm?"

"It's near Hammersmith. We drive there; miles and miles!"

"The farm is called 'Sunnycrest,'" put in Jane eagerly, "because the house-grandfather's house-stands up on a hill. The farmhouse and stables are down the hill across the dearest little creek, where they have a dairy and make butter. Huldah lets me help sometimes. Huldah cooks for grandmother but she lives at the farm, she and Josh."

"Josh is grandfather's 'right-hand man,' grandfather calls him. He bosses the whole farm and he's awfully nice."

"It all sounds 'awfully nice,'" said the gray-haired lady a little wistfully. "I am going to Hammersmith, too, only I have to stay in the village. Perhaps you will come to see me some time?"

"Yes'm," said Jane politely. "If grandmother will let us."

Grandmother herself joined them just then. She was afraid that the children might be tiring their new friend. She and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones introduced themselves to each other and grandmother sat down in the chair out of which the children, mindful of their manners, had tumbled. They stood quietly in the aisle for a moment or two, but as grandmother would not allow them to have any more chocolates and the conversation promised to be quite "grown up," they ran back to their own seats.

Presently the train slowed down and finally came to a stop beside a long, dilapidated platform with a small, low wooden house. There were several sets of tracks branching out from this platform in different directions and on the platform was a group of people, standing about as if waiting for a train.

"What's the matter, grandfather?" asked Christopher a little impatiently. "I thought this train wasn't going to stop again until we got to Hammersmith."

The conductor, who was passing through the train, heard Christopher's question and stopped obligingly to explain.

"We have to wait for the Mount Pleasant train here at the Junction, sonny," he said. "It's a bit late, but we won't be delayed long. Them people," he added to grandfather, pointing through the window to the group on the platform, "have been waiting for it 'most four hours. They're a circus troupe."

A circus troupe! A traveling circus-how interesting! Jane and Christopher pressed eagerly to the window and stared out at the small knot of people. There was nothing remarkable about them except that they all looked tired and a little anxious. Jane surveyed them thoughtfully.

"Poor people," she said. "I'm sorry they have to stand there so long, waiting. They look tired. And there's a baby-oh, Kit!" She grasped her brother suddenly by the sleeve, still peering out through the window. "Oh, Kit, it is, it is!" she exclaimed excitedly. "It's Letty!"

"Who, the baby is?" asked Christopher contemptuously. "Do stop clawing me, Jane."

"No, no, the girl holding the baby. Do look, Kit. Don't you see her?"

Jane loosened her hold of Christopher's sleeve to point out a child standing a little apart from the waiting group. The girl was dressed in a faded, clean frock of pink gingham and her glossy brown hair was smoothly brushed and braided. Her face was turned away from the children, but what they could see of it looked thin and sad. She carried a jolly, restless, heavy baby in her arms who was crowing and holding out its arms toward the locomotive. Christopher looked at the girl a moment in hesitation.

"I don't believe it's Letty. But it does look some like her," he added doubtfully. "I wish she would turn around more so I could see her face better."

As if in answer to his wish the little girl did turn just then and looked directly at the children. Perhaps she had felt the intentness of Jane's earnest gaze. At sight of the twins her face suddenly brightened and she walked slowly down the platform toward the car in which they were sitting.

"It is Letty!" exclaimed the twins together in great excitement, and they commenced to nod and smile with all their might.

"Oh, grandfather, mayn't we go to the platform to speak to her? We haven't seen her in three whole years!" cried Jane eagerly. "We thought she was lost."

"Speak to whom?" asked grandfather in great surprise, looking out of the window over the children's shoulders.

"Why, to Letty. See, there she is. She's the little girl who saved our lives from the bear. Hurry, before the train starts," explained Christopher, jumping up from his seat.

He and Jane rushed pell-mell down the aisle to the door, followed by Mr. Baker.

"What is it? What has happened?" asked grandmother in some alarm, looking up from her conversation with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. "What are they going to see?"