"You must be prepared for the worst, you know!"
"I am prepared. As Orba told me once, God is my father, whoever my mother
may be!"
"That's right. Hold by that!" said my uncles, as with one breath.
"Do you know the year you were born?" asked uncle Edmund.
"My _mother_ says I was born in 1820."
"You have not seen the entry?"
"No. One does not naturally doubt such statements."
"Assuredly not--until--" He paused.
How uncle Edmund had regained his wits! And how young the brothers
looked!
"You mean," said John, "until he has known my mother!"
Now for the story of my twin uncles, mainly as written by my uncle
Edward!
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE STORY OF MY TWIN UNCLES.
"My brother and I were marvellously like. Very few of our friends, none
of them with certainty, could name either of us apart--or even together.
Only two persons knew absolutely which either of us was, and those two
were ourselves. Our mother certainly did not--at least without seeing one
or other of our backs. Even we ourselves have each made the blunder
occasionally of calling the other by the wrong name. Our
indistinguishableness was the source of ever-recurring mistake, of
constant amusement, of frequent bewilderment, and sometimes of annoyance
in the family. I once heard my father say to a friend, that God had never
made two things alike, except his twins.
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