us alike. Even after we were through kindergarten and primary school we were not sent to a co-educational preparatory school so that we would stay together. In fact, they avoided all the pitfalls of bringing up twins on their part, although we remained very close together in spite of the advanced training of our parents.

I have only referred to our childhood and the way we were brought up in London so that the reader understand the subsequent events. For the story is not about the past, but what happened next.

may

As I said Dad was a correspondent on a great newspaper and the even tenor of our lives were suddenly disrupted when he came home one evening and announced that he was being sent to Singapore, and he wanted Mother to go with him. Mother had many reasons why she could not go, especially when she heard it was for three years. The main reason was of course that thye would be seperated from us children at a formative period in our lives. Mother advanced so many difficulties, but Dad waived aside every difficulty and argument. He easily answered Mother's suggestion that he beg not to go and have someone else take his place. Dad said not only would he lose any preferment, but likely would be let 4

go.

To the

argument of Mum's that they couldn't afford to send us to boarding schools, Dad replied that there was no need to, we could go and live with his sister, who had twins of her own.

We had not seen Aunt Louise for a few years, and as we remembered her we had not liked her very much. Non had we liked our twin cousins then, for they were no fun at all, afraid to do anything, so prim and proper, telling us that was naughty and this was naughty too!

Needless to say, Dad won out in the argument, and plans were laid for an extended stay abroad, while we children were going for an equally extended visit to Aunt Louise. After we had said goodnight to our parents and gone up to bed, I went into Babs' bedroom, as we often did, usually in our nightclothes, so that either of us could rush back and jump into our own beds if we heard Mom on Dad coming upstairs. We talked over the notten luck at losing our parents for three years, at having to leave our schools and friends, and at having to stay with Aunt Louise. We wondered what she would be like now, and whether our cousins had improved or were still little prigs. But being optimistic by nature, we concluded that was years ago and perhaps our Aunt and cousins had improved, or, at

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