Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/20

12 libraries. The twins—Meg and Robin—had heard stories and read books all the first years of their lives as they sat in their little seats by the small, warm fireside. In Aunt Matilda's bare, cold house there was not a book to be seen. A few agricultural papers were scattered about. Meals were hurried over as necessary evils. The few people who appeared on the scene were farmers who talked about agricultural implements and the wheat market.

"It's such a bare place," Robin used to say, and he would drive his hands into the depths of his pockets and set his square little jaw, and stare before him.

Both the twins had that square little jaw. Neither of them looked like their father and mother except that from their mother they inherited black hair. Robin's eyes were black, but Meg's were grey with thick black lashes. They were handsome little creatures, but their shocks of straight black hair, their straight black brows and square little jaws, made them look curiously unlike other children. They both remembered one winter evening when, as they sat on their seat by the fire, their father, after looking at them with a half smile for a moment or so, began to laugh.

"Margaret," he said to their mother, "do you know who those two are like? You have heard me speak of Matilda often enough."