Stuyvesant's natal day? She couldn't have had too many Stuyvesants.
Still, she considered it her duty to be as nice as possible to the twins, now that she had them; and besides, they were growing up to be surprisingly pretty girls, with a pleasantly increasing resemblance to Stuyvesant.
Always, a day or two prior to the anniversary, she went surreptitiously into the antique shops and picked out for each of them a piece of jewellery, or a bit of china, or a strip of lace, or anything else that bore evidence of having once been in a very nice sort of family. On the glad morning she delivered her gifts, with sweet impressiveness, into the keeping of these remote little descendants of her beloved ancestors! Invariably something English, heirlooms that she had kept under lock and key since the day they came to Mr. Smith-Parvis under the terms of his great-grandmother's will. Up to the time Stuyvesant was sixteen he had been getting heirlooms from a long-departed great-grandfather, but on reaching that vital age, he declared that he preferred cash.
The twins had a rare assortment of family heirlooms in the little glass cabinets upstairs.
"You must cherish them for ever," said their mother, without compunction. "They represent a great deal more than mere money, my dears. They are the intrinsic bonds that connect you with a glorious past."
When they were ten she gave them a pair of beautiful miniatures,—a most alluring and imperial looking young lady with powdered hair, and a gallant young gentleman with orders pinned all over his bright red coat. It appears that the lady of the miniature was a
