“TWO bonnier babes,” said the grey old midwife, bending thoughtfully over them, “I never before assisted into the world.”

The mother, lying wan in her bed, smiled happily.

“So bonny are they,” said the wrinkled beldame, “that I will give to each of them one of my choicest gifts: something they will still keep hugged to their hearts when they are as close to the gates as you or I.”

“And how close is that?” asked the mother, growing whiter.

The wise old midwife turned from the bedside and bent above the infants, mumbling to herself.

Presently the mother started up from a doze. There was no one in the room but her married sister. “I dreamed Death was in the room with me just now,” said she. “And he had an old woman with him whom he called his Sister. She seemed to me to be giving my babies something: but what it was I don’t know. At first I thought it was a plaything; but now I think it was a sorrow. At least. . . .”

“Dear! DEAR!” cried her sister, in alarm, as if she saw the spirit drifting beyond her ken.

“My babies!” whispered the mother.

And presently she was “at rest.”

Rick and Dick grew up somehow. Though motherless and fatherless they were not quite friendless, and in the struggle for existence they held their own and kept alive.

A more agreeable and cheerful fellow than Dick it would have been impossible to find, according to his companions. He seemed dowered with a disposition so equable and contented that it was a pleasure to be with him: and he radiated cheerfulness like a fire. Moreover, he was in thorough harmony with his surroundings. He found fault with nothing in the structure of society, and desired no change either in laws or institutions: everything was ordered wisely, and was ordered for the best. In fact, he was the spirit of Content personified: and much patting on the back did he get for his reward.

“We must give him a helping hand, must push him forward, you know,” said the Community, beaming on its cheerful young champion.

And Dick took the “pushing forward” with admirable self-composure, and certainly seemed to deserve all he got.

As for Rick, the Community would have nothing to do with him. He was not quite an out-and-out pessimist, it was true; but he seemed to look on the Community as a most clumsily-articulated creature a thing of shreds and patches, and the Cheap Jack of shams. He was always putting his finger on this spot or that; hinting that here there was a weakness, and there . . . something worse. Every advanced thinker, and the majority of theorists, could count on finding a sympathetic listener in him: and not infrequently they found in him an advocate also; such an arrant anti-optimist was the pestilent fellow. As if Civilization, after thousands of years of travail, had produced nothing better than a clumsy abortion with the claws of an animal and the tastes of Jack-an-ape! Why, the man must be mad, to have such irregular fancies! It was a pity laws against opinions were not oftener put in force: then a click of the guillotine, and the world would have peace!

Rick listened grimly, and made a note of the imagery. “You will remember it better in black and white,” said he.

In the course of years Dick became a churchwarden and a philanthropist (he took the infection very mildly and in its most agreeable form), and a highly respected gambler on, or rather member of, the Stock Exchange. He was also joined “in the bands of holy matrimony” to a buxom young widow who was left-handedly connected with The Aristocracy Itself! The lady brought him a most desirable fortune to start with, and after some years made him a present of twins: so that Dick was now a notable man among his acquaintances, and had the ambition to become a bigger man still, by-and-by: a Common Councilman certainly, and an Alderman perhaps!

Meanwhile Rick had developed into a musty savant: a fellow whose tastes, if you might call them such, were of the most outre order in advance of everything that was sober, respectable, and conventional; and in aggressive alliance with everything that was disturbing, and that was maliciously and wickedly critical (said the saints).

“The kernel of his life is unhealthy,” said his brother: “it has a deadly fungus growing in it, I am afraid.”

“The fungus of discontent, dear friend,” said the clergyman.

“I am afraid so,” said Dick, with a prodigious great sigh. “Still, we must none the less pray for him unceasingly: for prayer availeth much, as we know.”

The clergyman dramatically clasped his white hands together, looking up as one who speechlessly admires.

Rick sat musing in his gloomy study: thinking of the ladder he had climbed, and of the scenery of his life that now stretched out like a map before him.

Presently the study door opened softly, and a Figure came in and took a chair at his side.

“You have come, then!” said Rick. “I thought your coming must be near.”

“Shall we start?” asked the Figure.

“I am ready,” answered Rick.

And they passed out together into the deep black night.

“Come, take my arm: we will call together for your brother.”

“He has so much to make him happy! There are the little ones and his wife! Could you not delay a little?”

“He must come with us to-night.”

Dick was attending a banquet which was being given in his honour to celebrate his recent election as a Common Councilman, and the lust of life was in his every vein. But in the act of responding to the toast of the evening he was suddenly attacked by a fit of apoplexy. He staggered, and fell back and they perceived that he was dead.

It was a bleak and a very depressing journey to pass nakedly and alone from the warm, well-lighted, and flattering banquet, and, most of all, from the comfortable and familiar earth, up to the Doom’s-man and the Bar beside the Gates. If he could only have had a friend or two at his side!

On the way up, just as he was nearing the gates, Dick overtook Rick, who was a little way ahead of him.

“Come, let us go up together,” said Rick.

At the gates, however, Dick began to grow uneasy. His brother’s reputation on earth among “the godly” was a curiously unwelcome memory to Dick now the Bar was so near and the Doom’s-man was in sight.

“You go first,” said Dick to his brother; falling behind as if to dissociate himself from him.

Rick passed the gate and stood silently at the Bar.

“Place the brothers side by side,” said the Doom’s-man sternly.

“If you please,” began Dick, stumbling in his speech, so afraid was he of being confounded in the judgment of his brother; “If you please. . . .”

Said the Doom’s-man: “Let the Advocates state the case.”

The Black-robed Advocate claimed Rick boldly. The verdict of Rick’s fellow-citizens, he asserted, was emphatic on the point that Rick was legitimately his. And he went with the majority, and claimed a verdict accordingly.

The White-robed Advocate advanced, more hesitatingly, that Dick presumably should go with him. The Community, he averred, had long ago decided that only in this way would justice have its due.

The Doom’s-man’s verdict was simplicity itself.

A nature so contented, and so little given to fault-finding, would be the typical one for the Black Advocate’s household, said the Doom’s-man, humorously contemplating Dick. “Take him away with you,” said he to the Black Advocate: “the man will give you no trouble, as you know.

“But that restless, fault-finding fellow there,” and he indicated Rick with a movement of his forefinger, “it would need a faultless abode like yours to satisfy him,” and he signed to the silent White Advocate at his side. “Take him, he is yours,” said the Doom’s-man solemnly.

And with that the Advocates departed with their awards.