All constraint and formality quickly disappeared, and the friendliest
feeling succeeded. Aunt Patsy called them by their Christian names
almost from the beginning. She was full of the keenest curiosity
about them, and showed it; they responded by talking about themselves,
which pleased her greatly. It presently appeared that in their early
youth they had known poverty and hardship. As the talk wandered along,
the old lady watched for the right place to drop in a question or two
concerning that matter, and when she found it, she said to the blond twin,
who was now doing the biographies in his turn while the brunette one rested:
“If it ain’t asking what I ought not to ask, Mr. Angelo, how did you
come to be so friendless and in such trouble when you were little?
Do you mind telling? But don’t, if you do.”
“Oh, we don’t mind it at all, madam; in our case it was merely misfortune,
and nobody’s fault. Our parents were well to do, there in Italy,
and we were their only child. We were of the old Florentine nobility”–
Rowena’s heart gave a great bound, her nostrils expanded,
and a fine light played in her eyes–“and when the war broke out,
my father was on the losing side and had to fly for his life.
His estates were confiscated, his personal property seized, and there
we were, in Germany, strangers, friendless, and in fact paupers.
My brother and I were ten years old, and well educated for that age,
very studious, very fond of our books, and well grounded in the German,
French, Spanish, and English languages. Also, we were marvelous musical
prodigies–if you will allow me to say it, it being only the truth.
“Our father survived his misfortunes only a month, our mother soon
followed him, and we were alone in the world. Our parents could have
made themselves comfortable by exhibiting us as a show, and they had
many and large offers; but the thought revolted their pride,
and they said they would starve and die first. But what they
wouldn’t consent to do, we had to do without the formality of consent.
We were seized for the debts occasioned by their illness and their funerals,
and placed among the attractions of a cheap museum in Berlin to earn the
liquidation money. It took us two years to get out of that slavery.
We traveled all about Germany, receiving no wages, and not even our keep.
We had to be exhibited for nothing, and beg our bread.
“Well, madam, the rest is not of much consequence. When we escaped from
that slavery at twelve years of age, we were in some respects men.
Experience had taught us some valuable things; among others,
how to take care of ourselves, how to avoid and defeat sharks
and sharpers, and how to conduct our own business for our own profit and
without other people’s help. We traveled everywhere–years and years–
picking up smatterings of strange tongues, familiarizing ourselves
with strange sights and strange customs, accumulating an education
of a wide and varied and curious sort. It was a pleasant life.
We went to Venice–to London, Paris, Russia, India, China, Japan–”
At this point Nancy, the slave woman, thrust her head in at
the door and exclaimed:
“Ole Missus, de house of plum’ jam full o’ people, en dey’s
jes a-spi’lin’ to see de gen’lemen!” She indicated the twins
with a nod of her head, and tucked it back out of sight again.
It was a proud occasion for the widow, and she promised
herself high satisfaction in showing off her fine foreign birds
before her neighbors and friends–simple folk who had hardly ever
seen a foreigner of any kind, and never one of any distinction or style.
Yet her feeling was moderate indeed when contrasted with Rowena’s.
Rowena was in the clouds, she walked on air; this was to be the
greatest day, the most romantic episode in the colorless history of
that dull country town. She was to be familiarly near the source of
its glory and feel the full flood of it pour over her and about her;
the other girls could only gaze and envy, not partake.