Grandma Elsie took tea at Woodburn, but drove home to Ion directly after. Edward, her eldest son, met her in the veranda with a face full of pleasurable excitement.
“It is over, mamma,” he said; “most happily over!”
“Ah, how thankful I am!” she exclaimed. “Can I see her?”
“Yes, oh yes! She is sleeping, though, the influence of the ether having not yet passed off.”
“It is a surprise,” she said. “I should have hastened home if I had had the least idea of what was going on.”
“It was sudden and unexpected; rather quickly over, too, or you should have been sent for. Fortunately Cousin Arthur happened in just as I was about to summon him.”
“Which is it?”
“Both,” he returned, with a joyous laugh.
“Indeed! that too is a surprise. But none the less delightful.”
He was leading the way to the suite of apartments occupied by himself and wife, his mother following.
They passed into the bedroom, where Zoe lay extended on her couch in placid slumber. They drew near and stood looking down at her, each face a trifle anxious.
She stirred and opened her eyes sleepily: “Mamma,” she murmured, “Edward—”
“Yes, love, we are both here,” he answered in tender tones. Then bending over her and pressing a tender kiss upon her cheek: “Do you know how rich you are, my darling?”
“Rich?” she repeated with a bewildered look up into his face, still only half awake.
“Yes; both you and I; we have more than doubled our wealth since you went to sleep two hours ago.”
“Oh!” rousing to full consciousness, “is it all over? Which is it? Show it to me, do, dear.”
“It’s both,” he said, with a low, gleeful laugh.
“Look! they are close beside you,” folding back the covers of the bed, and bringing into view a pair of tiny forms and faces. “Your son and daughter, young Mrs. Travilla.”
She raised herself slightly to get a better view. “Oh, the darlings, the lovely darlings! Indeed we are rich! You may have the girl, but the boy’s mine,” she added, with a silvery laugh. “But they’re like as two peas. If they were both boys, or both girls, I should never be able to tell them apart. So it’s a blessing they’re one of each.”
“There, lie down now,” he said. “They’re great treasures, but both together worth less to me than their mother; and I can’t have her running any risks. Mamma, dear, what do you think of your new grandchildren?”
“Just what the new-made parents do,” she answered, bending over them from the other side of the bed. “Welcome, welcome, little strangers! there is plenty of room in grandma’s heart for you both.”
“Our birthday gift to you, mamma,” said Zoe.
“What, giving them away already?” queried Edward playfully, “and that without consulting me!”
“Only as grandchildren,” she answered in the same tone. “You and I are papa and mamma. Ah, how delightfully odd it seems! Poor little dears, to have such a silly young thing for their mother,” she added sorrowfully, reaching out a hand and softly touching the tiny faces with the tips of her fingers. “But then they have a good papa, and such a dear, wise grandma. Are you pleased? Will you take them for your birthday gift from me, mamma?” lifting loving, entreating eyes to the sweet face of her mother-in-law.
“Indeed I will, dear child. You could have given me nothing more acceptable,” bending down to touch her lips softly to the velvet cheek of first the one and then the other. “Which is the boy and which the girl, Ned?”
“I really don’t know, mamma,” he said, laughing, “for, as their mother says, they are as like as two peas.”
“We’ll have to put some sort of mark on them,” said Zoe, gloating over her new treasures, “else one may often be blamed for the other’s faults. Ah, I wonder whether they will be wise and good like their father, or silly like their mother.”
“You are slandering their mother, and I can’t allow it,” Edward said, frowning in mock indignation. “But you weren’t to talk. You must be quiet, or I’ll have to run away.”
“We’ll have use for both our names, Ned,” remarked Zoe, smiling up into her husband’s face, the next time he came to her bedside.
“Yes,” he said, with a glance of pride and pleasure, from her to the little ones.
Then turning to his mother, “You must understand, mamma, that we had selected a suitable name for the expected little stranger, whether it should prove to belong to the one sex or the other. Of course we desired to name for you or my father; but there are already so many Elsies and Neds in the family connection that we decided to add another name, as you did in my case, to avoid confusion; that if a boy, it should be named Edward Lawrence, for both Zoe’s father and mine, and commonly called Laurie; but if a girl, should be Lily, for the dear little sister who went to heaven so many years ago.”
“I entirely approve your choice,” said his mother, her eyes shining through tears of mingled joy and sorrow, as her thoughts were carried back to the husband and child whose loved presence would cheer her earthly pilgrimage no more. “Laurie and Lily; the two names go nicely together. It will be sweet to have a Lily in the family again, and I trust she and her brother may be spared to their parents, even to be the stay and staff of their old age.”
“How cunningly you have managed to catch up with Elsie and me in the matter of providing mamma with grandchildren,” was Violet’s jesting remark to Zoe, when she came for the first time to look at the new arrivals.
“Yes, haven’t I?” laughed Zoe. “We have two apiece now, making six in all. Mamma says she is growing rich in grandchildren.”
“Six of her own, and four others who address her by that title, though it has always seemed ridiculous to me, considering how young my darling mother looks.”
“Yes, to me too. But these darlings are her very own and—Vi, don’t you think they’re the sweetest things that ever were made?”
“O Zoe, don’t ask quite so much as that of me!” returned Violet, with playful look and smile. “I do really think them as sweet as they can be, but my own two no less so!”
“Oh, of course!” laughed Zoe. “It was just like my silliness to ask such a question. I tell mamma they are Ned’s and my birthday gift to her; though they came three weeks before the time.”
“They’ll not be less worth having for being three weeks old,” remarked Violet.
“No; they develop new beauties every day. Mamma herself says so. And I am glad there is time for me to recover sufficiently to enjoy the festivities of the occasion.”
Zoe hovering over her babies made a pretty picture to look upon. She would scarcely let them out of her sight; rejoiced over them with singing and laughter, full of mirth and gladness, as though the veriest child herself. Yet at times her mood changed, her face wore a pensive expression akin to sadness, and caressing them with exceeding tenderness, she would murmur softly:
“My wee bit darlings, my precious treasures, what trials and sufferings may be yours before you reach the end of life’s long journey! Ah, if your mother might but bear all your pains and troubles for you, how gladly she would do it.”
“Dear daughter,” Grandma Elsie said on overhearing the words one day, “that is one of the cares we are privileged to cast on Jesus. He dearly loves the little ones, and he has all power in heaven and in earth. ‘I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee,’ is one of the many great and precious promises of his Word. ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.’ Seek wisdom for that work by prayer and the study of God’s word.”
“I will, mamma,” Zoe answered thoughtfully. “I am quite sure Edward will make a good father, and I shall try very hard to be a good mother; I shall take you, dear mamma, for my pattern, for there couldn’t be a better mother than you are, and always have been.”
“I have tried to be—tried in the way I have recommended to you—but I sometimes made mistakes, and I would have you follow me only in so far as I have followed Christ, and the teachings of his Word,” Grandma Elsie answered, in sincere humility.
“Mamma,” said Zoe, “I do not believe it possible for any frail human creature to follow more closely in the Master’s footsteps than you do.”
The Ion twins were objects of great interest to all the children of the connection, and from the first news of their arrival they were eager to see them. It was not allowed, however, till the proud young mother was able to exhibit them herself.
Rosie and Walter had of course a look at them on the day of their birth, but they were nearly two weeks old before the others were admitted to Zoe’s room, where she insisted on keeping her precious treasures all the time.
The Woodburn children were anxious for their turn, and at last it came. Lulu and Grace rode over to Ion one pleasant afternoon, on their ponies, Fairy and Elf, the captain and Max accompanying them on their larger steeds.
The little girls did not know when they started that Ion was their destination, and on arriving were still in doubt whether they were to see the babies; but the greetings were scarcely over when they asked if they might.
“Yes; Zoe is feeling very well to-day, and I think it will do her no harm to see you all for a few moments,” replied Grandma Elsie, leading the way. “You may come, too, Captain; Zoe is always delighted with an opportunity to exhibit her treasures.”
“Thank you, mother, I accept your invitation with pleasure,” he answered, following with his children.
Zoe, lying on a couch with a dainty crib close beside her, greeted her visitors with smiles and words of welcome.
“It seems an age since I last saw your pleasant countenance, Captain,” she said, as he took her hand.
“You could hardly miss me with such companionship as you have here,” he returned playfully, as he bent over the crib and took a scrutinizing look at its tiny occupants. “They are really worth showing, little mother.”
“I should say they were,” she responded, laughing; a low, gleeful, silvery laugh.
Grandma Elsie had led Lulu and Grace to the other side of the crib. “O Aunt Zoe, what lovely little darlings!” they both exclaimed. “And it’s such a pretty sight, two babies just the same size and exactly alike!”
“So it is,” said the captain, but added playfully, “both together, though, would hardly make one of our Ned; so Aunt Zoe need not propose to swap.”
“Aunt Zoe has not the remotest idea of making such a proposition,” she returned gayly. “No, indeed, mother’s darlings,” raising herself on one elbow that she might have a good look at each tiny face, “you needn’t fret,”—for one stirred in its sleep and gave a faint little cry—“no one could persuade mamma to give even one of you for the biggest baby in the land.”
“Was that Laurie? or Lily, Aunt Zoe?” asked Lulu. “Such pretty names as you have given them!”
“Yes, I think so. It was Laurie that cried out then; he’s not so quiet as Lily; but one must expect a boy to make more noise in the world than a girl.”
“But how can you tell which is which, Aunt Zoe,” queried Grace; “they look exactly alike to me.”
“To me too; but see, we have put a gold chain round Lily’s neck, and Laurie has none.”
“Ah, no wonder he cries out at such favoritism,” remarked the captain sportively.
“Sure enough!” exclaimed Zoe; “strange I had not thought of it before. But he shall have that excuse no longer; he shall wear that lovely necklace of pink coral beads Ned gave me on my last birthday. Lu, if you will go to my jewel-case and get it, I’ll be much obliged.”
“I will, Aunt Zoe; I’m delighted with the errand,” exclaimed Lulu, hurrying into the adjoining dressing-room.
She had been there often enough to know where to find what she had been sent for, and was back again in a moment with it in her hand.
“Thank you, Lu. Hand it to mamma, please,” said Zoe. “She will put it on him; I’d like to do it myself, but presume I wouldn’t be allowed, they are all so exceedingly—I’d almost said absurdly—careful of me.”
“It would be better for you not to make the effort, my dear,” Grandma Elsie said, taking the necklace from Lulu’s hand.
All eyes were upon her as she gently raised the tiny head just enough to enable her to slip it under and around the child’s neck, then fastened the clasp in front.
“I don’t know,” she remarked in a doubtful tone, “that he will be quite as comfortable with as without it, and I’m positively certain he will not appreciate the honor.”
The babe was fast asleep, and did not rouse himself to give his opinion.
Rosie had come softly into the room, and was standing beside the crib with the others.
“Aren’t they the loveliest, darlingest wee pets that ever were seen?” she exclaimed. “I think it would be delightful to have one baby in the house—really belonging here—but to have two such pretty pets is doubly delightful.”
“Yes, but I think you’ll find it better still when they’re grown to be as large as ours, and can run about and talk,” said Lulu. “They do say such smart things sometimes.”
“Yes; what fun it will be when these two begin to talk!” Zoe exclaimed, with a low, gleeful, happy laugh, touching each tiny face caressingly.