THE MEMOIRS OF A BABY
"You take one up so abruptly, Susy! I don't know that I should have put it in just that way. I hope I have tact enough not to deliberately inflict a shock that might in the present state of things—"
"As far as that goes, Aunt Emma, the present state of things doesn't necessarily imply that I am utterly imbecile, you know, and anyway, it wouldn't be a shock. I think twins would be interesting. It would be such fun not to tell them apart!"
"Susy!"
"Well, it would. And I'd dress them in Russian blouses, with those shiny patent-leather belts around their little tummies, and shiny round patent-leather hats, and bang their hair straight across, and if I ever guessed right—which was which, you know—I'd punish them!"
Aunt Emma's face expressed that degree of resignation which imperfectly masks a righteous desire to shake the object of it out of that object's shoes.
"You change so little, Susy," she complained. "Marriage seems to have had no effect whatever. . . . I remember so well a conversation we had the first day I met you. It was so characteristic. I had been telling you some of Tom's good traits, and then I mentioned the things that would, in my
2
